


One More Time, With Feeling

by vulcan_slash_robot



Series: dem bois [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Civil War Fix-It, M/M, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations, Sort Of, Surprisingly Fluffy, hand-wavey avengering, look i came here to tell a romance story not an action story, tony trying to be a grown up, tony trying to fix things by engineering at them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-01-05 00:31:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12179490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcan_slash_robot/pseuds/vulcan_slash_robot
Summary: The Civil War went slightly differently. Now that everybody's home again, what is Tony supposed to do with this other guy his boyfriend is in love with?





	1. Stony

_Many months ago…_

AC/DC dropped from some ungodly amount of decibels to what Tony considered “inaudible” and most other people informed him was ”moderately loud”. Tony spun in place, soldering iron still in hand, with a bright Steve-is-home smile already on his face. Jarvis only dimmed the music without prompting for one person, on pain of reprogramming. 

Tony’s smile died the second he saw Steve’s face.

“Oh god, oh god honey, Capcake, sit down, what happened,” Tony babbled frantically, chucking his tools god-knows-where and rushing to catch his unsteady soldier. “Who did this, who gave you that face, Fury? I’ll kill him. I will fly over there right now and throw him off his own building–”

“Tony…” Steve’s voice was so faint Tony almost didn’t hear it, but he still recognized the cue to calm his chatter.

“What did they make you do?” He prompted, clamping down on the thousand less-coherent questions he wanted to add as he steered Steve to the workshop couch. 

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. You were at SHIELD all day and I know your traumatized face when I see it. What did they make you do.”

“Nothing. It’s not…something I did,” Steve managed, now that he had a manic ball of boyfriend glommed onto his side, mussing his hair in a frantic attempt to be helpful. “It was all briefings today. Catching up.” Steve swallowed hard. “Old files.”

“Okay, what did they do  _previously_ that they need to pay for, then.”

“ _Tony_. SHIELD didn’t do anything,” He sighed. “Except put me in impossible situations.”

“Yep, okay, taking this out of Fury’s hide, Jarvis prep the–”

“STOP. Stay,” Steve tugged him into his lap by the belt-loops. “Just. Stay.”

Steve pressed his face to Tony’s chest, listening to his heartbeat in the shadow of the arc reactor’s hum, using both to tune out the continuing rant from overhead.

“…Tony?” he whispered again, after a while.

“Yeah?”

“I learned something today. Something awful. Not something SHIELD did, just something nobody managed to stop. You don’t have the clearance to know about it…but it’s awful knowing it alone. Only it might be worse to tell you. I can’t decide.”

Tony held very still for a few moments.

“Did the thing…happen to me?” Tony ventured.

“…no.”

“You took too long to think about that.”

Steve offered no further comment. Tony sighed.

“Someone else we know?”

“Knew.”

“Oh.”

“…it’s about Howard.”

Tony flinched, the way he always did. “Nope, fuck that, the less said the better. If it comes up, refer back to this moment. I chose not to know.”

*********

_A few months ago…_

“An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumbles from within? That’s dead.”

Grainy footage began to play on the tiny screen, static echoing through the abandoned silo. 

“I know that road…” Tony mumbled. “What is this?” he called out, louder, to the man behind the glass. 

Onscreen, a car slammed into a tree, and a man on a motorcycle pulled up behind it. Bucky tensed, on the far side of Tony from Steve. Tony made a tiny, pained sound, puzzle pieces obviously flying together in his genius brain.

Tony stood, quaking in place, flinching at the first silent execution. The man in the video moved to the other side of the car. Tony stood stock still through it, unable to look away. 

When it was over, a few beats passed. Tony turned to Steve, eyes bright with unshed tears. 

“Did you know?” Tony whispered.

“You asked–”

“Don’t fuck with me, Rogers, _did you **know**?_ ”

“ _You asked me not to tell you_ ,” Steve insisted. He gripped his shield a little tighter but didn’t raise it yet, almost certain he was about to take a repulsor to the face. “SHIELD didn’t have the video but I read the file. You asked me. Not to tell you.”

Tony reeled. His hurt had been doubled, in that first instant when he turned to Steve and saw no trace of his own heartbreak in that familiar face. The man who’d claimed to love him, who had been his father’s friend, just standing there, strong and impassive, as if this was old news.

But it was old news, because all those months ago, this had been what sent Steve stumbling into Tony’s workshop looking like the world had ended. That awful, gaping grief, that face that had nearly sent Tony out to wage war on an entire organization of spies, had been for the murder of his parents. 

“Oh,” Tony gasped. The rage in his chest died, all at once, but then suddenly redoubled with a new target in mind. “Oh,” Tony said again, sneering, face twisted with hatred. “Oh that is low,” he whipped around to face the glass, and the man who had brought them here. “Really? This was your plan? You wanna dig up the single worst thing that has happened to all three people in this room, and what? I’m supposed to be mad at  _them_? HYDRA did this, you asshole! HYDRA scooped a man’s brains out and used his empty shell to murder his friend! Poor Steve’s been trying to find a way to tell me for like eight months! And you play that video in my fucking FACE?! FUCK YOU!” 

Tony threw his arms wide, and the light in his chest was suddenly blinding. The light solidified, into a beam that must have been six inches wide, like a repulsor but more, like  _ten_ repulsors–Steve thought idly, as he dove aside. The beam lanced straight out at the window, bullet proof glass be damned. 

Blinking away the blind spots, Steve just saw the man in the booth staggering back to his feet amidst the dust of what had been his defenses. 

“Go get ‘im, boys,” Tony mumbled, slowly toppling to the floor.

“Tony!” Steve exclaimed, catching him.

“Excuse you, I said go get him.” Tony complained, swatting weakly at Steve’s hands. “Reactor’s just a little drained. For the moment. Go. Get. That stupid fucker. I will catch up.”

****

Tony hadn’t been able to muster enough charge to be much help again, but two incredibly pissed-off supersoldiers were plenty to catch one moderately-suicidal madman, once he’d been flushed out. Although Barnes had had to sacrifice his metal arm to stop an exceptionally heavy door from shutting on them at one point.

“Always hated that thing anyway,” Bucky assured Steve for the tenth time, as they watched T’challa loading their prisoner into a jet. Wakandan prison would hold the stupid fucker. “HYDRA built it,” Bucky elaborated. “I never trusted it. God knows what was in there.”

“Yeah but–”

“Stevie. No buts. Hated it. You hush.”

“Yeah,  _Stevie_ ,” Tony chimed in, staggering up behind them with a lopsided smile. “You hush.”

“Okay, no,” Steve held up a finger, trying not to be insanely over the moon that Tony was sassing him again instead of trying to knock him through a jet engine, “There is only has only ever been one man allowed to ‘Stevie’ me, and his last name is absolutely not Stark.”

Tony’s expression flickered for a moment, and Steve knew instantly that his attempt to banter back had wounded the man more deeply than he’d meant to.

“Damn, Tony, I didn’t mean–”

“Whoa, hold the fucking phone, did Stevie just swear?” Bucky cut him off in mid-apology.

“I think he did,” Tony agreed, smiling again, but Steve could see the pain he was covering all too well now. Not that it was any surprise. “Just barely, a little baby swear, but he definitely did. I’ve ruined you, Cap.”

“You tried hard enough, some of it had to take by now,” Steve shot back. His own easy grin was probably pretty transparent, now that he thought about it. Oh well. Better mention the elephant in the Siberian wasteland, then. “You planning to…keep trying?”

Tony heaved a sigh, apparently catching his meaning. 

“You won’t be welcome in the States for a while,” he replied, and Steve’s heart sank. “I’ll work on that, but it’ll take time. You fix this one,” he jerked his head at Bucky, “And I’ll take the government. Once you can step foot on American soil again, look me up. I’ve always got lots of guest rooms.”

Hope bubbled up in Steve’s chest, making it almost impossible to breathe. “You’d…you’d do that?”

Tony’s smile turned a little more genuine, a little more fond. “Hey, when Captain Fucking America isn’t allowed _in America_ , something is really wrong with the world. I can’t let that stand.”

************

_**Now.** _

Tony hadn’t had his music on, so this time when he heard the workshop doors hiss open, he couldn’t say for sure who it would be without looking. Well. Technically, Steve was supposed to get back today, and technically, he  _had_ made sure to reinstate Steve’s security codes this morning, and yes, technically, he hadn’t so much been actually working as flitting between random projects like a caffeinated hummingbird but still. It could always be Pepper, barging in as usual.

“Jarvis?” Tony whispered hoarsely, bent over a workbench and very carefully not looking at the door.

“Sir?”

“Who’s at the door?”

“It is Captain Rogers, sir,” Jarvis said gently, but then added, “He is, as usual, precisely on time.”

“My ceilings are full of sass,” Tony lamented. “Save yourself, Steve, you’ll get sass on you if you stay here.”

“If I was allergic to sass I’d’ve died in ought-four,” Steve’s voice echoed through the workshop, for the first time in half a year.

“Ought-four?” Tony returned, struggling to swallow past the lump in his throat. “You weren’t born in 1904, and you were on ice in 2004. The fuck do you mean ought-four. Pick a year you existed in, you…”

Tony turned, gesturing his frustration, but trailed off at the sight of him. Rumpled, harried, and perhaps a few pounds lighter, but…him. The same Steve. The same stupid sexy paradox, a gorgeously ripped young man in a plaid button-down shirt and pleated slacks and somehow pulling it off, just like always, just like his old self, but.

Standing anxiously in the doorway. Afraid to enter the workshop where he’d spent so many countless hours doodling on the sofa while Tony banged out new upgrades and designs for Avengers’ gear. The room he’d barged into a thousand-odd times with a tray of sandwiches or a thermos of coffee or to physically remove Tony after the 36 hour deadline and forcibly put him to bed. The room where they’d had some of the hottest makeout sessions Tony could ever remember but where Steve had flatly refused to make love because _wow, Tony, no, I cannot live if you get distracted from my body by a welding torch, and that has got to be unhygienic anyway_.  

Steve was hovering, uncertain of his welcome.

“No.” Tony said flatly.

“No?” Steve’s hesitant expression crumbled further, and he took half a step back.

“No you do not stand there  _afraid_ , you do not look at me like I don’t want you–” 

Tony took off at a dead run from a standing start. Steve’s eyes widened but he must have recognized the look on Tony’s face because he didn’t flinch, just spread his arms and caught him as Tony launched himself from three feet away and slammed into him full force, legs clamped around his waist and arms around his neck. The impact barely even jostled Steve, it was like pouncing on a steel pillar. Tony loved that, not just because it was hot but because it was  _Steve_ , only Steve could do that–well okay probably Thor could and Hulk definitely could but neither one of them would respond by bracing him with one arm under his ass and the other hand on the back of his neck so the point stands. 

“I missed you,” Tony admitted, face buried in Steve’s shoulder, and no, that, that was not sobbing, that thing his voice was doing, that would be silly so no that was not a sob. “So damn much.”

“Me too,” Steve answered, and that thing his voice was doing also kind of sounded like a sob so maybe it was allowed, if Captain America was doing it. “I’m so sorry. I screwed this up. If I hadn’t been so bull-headed–”

“I rushed, I shouldn’t have just jumped on the Accords like that I should have hammered them out and made them work for us all in the first place, Jesus I have all the lawyers on the fucking  _planet_ I could’ve–”

“You were still reeling from Ultron, I knew that, I should’ve cut you more slack and talked through it. Tony? We both fucked up.”

Tony startled at that, that real proper grade-A swear that Steve actually, adorably, stumbled over. He looked up instinctively, not wanting to miss the blushing-boy-scout face that always showed up when Cap did something  _naughty_. He grinned, finding the guilty flush right where it belonged, but the smile slowly melted off his face, and he slid his legs down to stand on his own as he sobered.

“Steve?” he asked gently. “Are we still…is there an us, after all this?”

“God I really hope so.” Steve answered fervently, running his thumbs over the short hair at the nape of Tony’s neck. “Otherwise I had a really awkward conversation with Buck for no good reason.”

“You…?”

“…had to explain, very carefully, that it’s okay now if two fellas want to be together, but that I’d thought he was dead, so I hadn’t been waiting. That I had somebody I love, and I’m not ready to give up on him.”

“Oh Steve, no,” Tony’s heart was breaking by proxy. “You shouldn’t…you’ve been in love with that man since, since, since _ought-four_. You can’t–”

“DON’T. Don’t push me away. If you’re too mad from all…this, to take me back, that’s one thing. But don’t push me away on his account. He already did that, when I told him about you. Christ, he’s done it to me twice now,” Steve scoffed at himself. “He’s made his opinion clear. What’s yours?”

“My opinion is that I’ve been in this stupid workshop long enough and I’ve missed my damn boyfriend,” Tony finally leaned in for the kiss he’d been craving since the door opened, or all morning, or honestly since the day Steve had left over the Accords. It was shaky, hesitant, and short, but it felt like coming home all the same. “I’m going to bed and you’re invited, Rogers.”

**********************************

Tony blinked slowly awake, instinctively nuzzling into a nearby warmth. As his brain came back online and reminded him what that warm wall was–whose smooth back he had his face pressed into–he broke into a lazy grin. Last night had been a much-needed catharsis, taking a permanent chunk out of the tension from the workshop.

“Mmm…” Steve sighed, still facing away from him. “I didn’t think I’d miss the morning beard-burns, specifically, but somehow, right now, that feels amazing.”

Tony deliberately scrubbed his goatee over Steve’s spine. “Blasphemy. You know you love the road-rash.”

Steve scoffed slightly and rolled over, half on top of him. “I love  _you_ ,” he clarified, pinning the smaller man with his weight. “Right now, anything that reminds me I’m with you is welcome.”

Tony swallowed hard; it was too damn early to be fending off these kind of emotions. “Sappy, Cap,” he accused.

“Always,” Steve agreed, nestling in against his neck.

Tony pressed a kiss to the burly forearm draped over his chest, and enjoyed the sleepy silence for a few minutes. 

“…Steve?” he mumbled eventually.

“Yeah?”

“I..I’m…” Tony heaved a sigh. He always felt like he knew how to have these conversations right up until words started coming out of his mouth, and then suddenly all his feelings were gibberish. “I’ve uh, I did some therapy, while you were gone, I mean, mostly informal therapy which I guess is just called advice, good advice from friends, but I did actually go to therapy a few times, like, at least once, maybe three times? But Rhodey was here a lot and Pepper calls me every day and–”

Tony paused for a deep breath, trying to wrench his train of thought back onto the tracks. He stared at the ceiling. “I know. I’m not good at talking about it when something goes horribly wrong. I’d always rather just do something about it. Hell, that’s exactly how Iron Man happened. So. With all the Accords stuff, getting the legislation changed until it worked better for you was my way of saying sorry for making it into such a shitshow the first time. But um. Rhodey, and Pepper, and that guy with the office I went to that time, couple times, keep telling me it’s important to state my intentions, because sometimes people don’t follow my logic right away.”

“You said you were sorry for that, last night,” Steve put in gently.

“I know. I did. That’s what I mean,” Tony steeled himself a bit more. “I put that into words, because apparently that’s important. So. Also putting this into words: I’m sorry about the Bucky stuff. That bombing was a frame job and I’m ashamed I didn’t see it, and I’m so, so sorry I didn’t trust your judgement about what to do with him. You were right, he’s a victim, and he needed our help.”

“Thank you,” Steve whispered, pressing a gentle kiss to Tony’s cheek. “I’m…I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you about your parents. It didn’t occur to me you might find out about it in a  _worse_ way, or I wouldn’t have hesitated. I just thought there was a chance you didn’t need to know at all, and you might be happier that way.”

“Yeah, I figured. For the record, Steven?” he finally turned his head to look Steve in the eyes. “The correct answer to ‘did the thing happen to me’ was  _ **yes**_.”

Steve flinched, looking sheepish. “Sorry.”

“Well.” Tony kissed him on the nose. “You may atone by going out and putting some coffee on.”

“Doesn’t Jarvis do that?”

“Usually yes but you’re atoning. Jarvis, don’t help him.”

“Aw.”

***************************************

Tony rolled over irritably, the smell of fresh coffee still notably absent from the air in the penthouse. 

“Okay Jarvis I know I said not to help him but it’s been like twenty minutes, please tell Grandpa where the beans are.”

“Captain Rogers does not seem to be having any difficulty with the coffee maker, sir,” Jarvis replied. There was a certain smug note to his voice that Tony didn’t trust.

“Where’s Steve, J,” Tony asked, covering his eyes in exasperation.

“On the communal floor, sir. I believe you will find a fresh pot of your favorite blend waiting, once you join him.”

“Wow. WOW. Eighteen hours in my house and he’s right back to being Captain Smartass. You’re an accomplice in this, you miserable heap of code.” Tony briefly considered making his own coffee in his own kitchen and waiting it out until Steve gave up and came back. But, considering how stubborn Steve could be, they’d both probably starve to death waiting for each other. 

Grumbling, Tony climbed out of bed and staggered to the elevator. “Tell him there better be breakfast, too,” he said petulantly, slumping against the wall. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, waiting out the short ride with all the patience he didn’t have.

In moments, the elevator binged softly and the doors swished open. 

“How dare you make me travel more than ten feet to coffee in my own house!’ Tony groused loudly, without opening his eyes.

“Oh look, it’s Tony!” giggled a familiar voice. The thick Sokovian accent was a shock in his ears. 

Tony’s head snapped forward, and his eyes popped open to the sight of Wanda and Sam sitting innocently at the bar in the communal kitchen, sipping his coffee and eating his toast. 

“ _ **ROGERS!**_ ” Tony sputtered, struggling to keep the grin off his face. Angry. He was very angry because there were Intruders In His Tower. Not at all pleased to have old teammates back, not at all. 

Steve’s head poked out from around the corner, grinning wildly. “Coffee?” he offered, holding up a mug.

“How dare!” Tony exclaimed in a scandalized tone, one hand over his heart. “I am an old man! How dare you lay a trap like this I could have died!” 

“Why Steve, didn’t you tell your sugar daddy you had your friends over?” Sam asked, trying to look innocent.

“Fuck you, Wilson,” Tony waved him off cheerfully. He finally strode out of the elevator, directly into the coffee Steve had offered. He chugged half of it before acknowledging the room again. “Fuck. I knew you were all coming, but he didn’t say you were here  _already_.”

“That was very rude, Captain,” Wanda teased, mock-serious.

Steve pulled an innocent face of his own. “Didn’t Jarvis let you know there were other people here?”

“No,” Tony replied, squinting at him, “Because he’s in league with you, that traitor.”

“Captain Rogers does have exceptionally high clearance in my protocols, sir,” Jarvis put in helpfully. Smug bastard. 

“Yeah well maybe I should change thaAAAUGH!” Tony nearly leaped out of his skin. He’d finally gotten caffeinated enough to notice the final occupant of the room. “STEVEN GRANT. How many heart attacks do I need to have this morning?!” Tony gestured to the far corner of the open-plan living space, where Bucky was slouched up in the shadows. “Jesus! Don’t  _lurk_ like that!” 

“Sorry, he’s still kind of shy,” Steve apologized, finally sounding slightly like he meant it. “I thought you’d assume he was around, once you saw the others.”

“Dumb, Rogers,” Tony announced, polishing off the first mug of coffee and going for more. “That was a dumb thing you said. Dumbest thing I’ve heard this morning. You know me, you know you can’t assume these things, especially not before coffee.”

Tony caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Bucky cautiously sidling toward the door.

“Whoa, no, I just got here, where do you think you’re going, robocop?”

“…you don’t want me here,” Bucky’s voice was gruff, but small.

“The fuck?” Tony replied, trying to bury his concern under  _casual_. “Who said that? New dumbest thing I’ve heard this morning. If I didn’t want you in here, Jarvis would’ve slammed the door in your face. That’s the kind of thing I plan for.”

“That is absolutely true,” Sam chimed in, “J locked me in an elevator for two hours once because Tony spontaneously revoked all my security clearances for trying to put a bird feeder on the balcony.”

“It’s not a balcony, Wilson, it’s a landing strip, it’s not safe for me or them to have birds hanging out there and I am not dealing with birdseed in my disassembly rig, that is not happening.” Tony fired back, strolling over to where Bucky was still hovering uncertainly in the middle of the room. “Sit, stay, have some toast,” Tony waved him toward a chair as he instinctively backed away. Tony dropped onto the couch. “How’s you? How’s that tinker-toy holding up?”

Bucky pulled his new left arm closer, suspicious and protective.

“What? Seriously, I should look at it, poor flimsy thing, even if you haven’t been doing much with it some of the moving parts have got to be worn down by now, it was never built to last–”

“My arm is  _fine_ ,” Barnes snarled, curling around it. “It’s supposed to be flimsy, I like it flimsy. I’m  _safer_ like this.”

“Um, I know?” Tony blinked owlishly. He took another long slug of coffee, hoping further caffeine would make this make more sense. The missing piece of the conversation slotted into place. “Aw, Steve, really? Steven Rogers, you didn’t tell him?”

“Tell him what?” Steve was looming behind the sofa, standing over Tony. 

“The breakaway arm!” Tony whined, annoyed. “You didn’t tell him who made it?”

A penny very visibly dropped behind Steve’s eyes. “YOU made that?!”

“Oh my GOD,” Tony scrambled to his feet and towards the nearest panel of smart-windows. “ _Jarvis get T’challa on the line right the fuck now_.”

“Mr Stark,” the king of Wakanda intoned graciously, his face appearing on the floor-to-ceiling screen, “I trust your guests have arri–”

“Yeah hi, they’re here, great news: what the FUCK.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You know I thought we were friends, T-Chay, I really thought we were, had a great thing going, exchange of ideas and all, real good time, but now I’m finding out you’re trying to take credit for my things. That hurts my feelings, pussycat, I better not find any Wakandan patents for my breakaway servos or we’re going to have some really serious words, I want to hear a good reason right now buddy.”

“What…on Earth are you…?”

“My  _arm_ , kittycat, the breakaway, idiot-proof  _non-weaponizeable arm_  I built for Barnes that  _somehow_ nobody else knows I made!”

“You…specifically stated that we were not to make a ‘big deal’ of its origins, when you sent us the prototype, Mr. Stark,” T’Challa replied, hesitant. 

“I MEANT don’t make some big speech on my behalf and put words in my mouth about what the gesture meant, not  _please take credit for my olive branch!_ ” Tony held out both arms, gesturing at the stunned supersoldiers in the living room. “Look at them! These idiots think I’m still mad now! Look what you did!”

“I apologize,” T’Challa still looked a bit confused and off-balance, but was doing his best to keep up with Tony’s frenzy. “It was not my intention to make things more difficult between you, I thought–”

“Yeah well now you know better bye.” Tony hung up with a wave at the screen, and the image winked out, leaving the usual view of New York in its place. 

“…wow,” Sam broke the silence after a few tense seconds. “You just called the king of a whole country, yelled at him and hung up on him. Before breakfast. Stark you are out of your mind.”

Tony sniffed dismissively and crossed his arms. “I worked on that thing for two fucking months,” he grumbled. “Had all kinds of ex-SHIELD people up here to troubleshoot, try and think of creative ways to hurt people with it. That’s the mark  _twelve_ you’re wearing, Barnes. The one Melinda May finally said she’d ‘rather have a dead salmon as a weapon than try to kill somebody with that thing.’”

A pair of warm arms wrapped gently around his shoulders from behind, and for a second Tony had the irrational thought that  _Bucky_ was hugging him–but, no, two arms, both flesh and blood–and then Steve’s face was pressed against the side of his neck.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Steve whispered. “That meant so much to him. He’s been a lot more comfortable with himself since that arrived.”

“Well, good,” Tony mumbled, snuggling against him. “That was the point.”

“I know. You like to apologize by making things better.”


	2. Stucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title doesn't mean there's no more Stony, just that this is also a thing that's happening now.

“Hi ho, Neighbor!”

Tony looked up from his work. The top half of Sam Wilson’s face was jutting out from behind the workshop door, next to an intensely nonplussed looking Bucky. Bucky didn’t like to wander the tower alone–not the kind of thing he tended to say out loud, also not the kind of thing the Wakanda Crowd needed to be told–and over the ten days since they’d all moved in, Sam was apparently his favorite babysitter. 

“Euuuuuaaagh?!” Tony replied, doing his best and loudest Tim Allen Grunt with an enthusiastic grin.

“I hate the future,” Bucky announced, deadpan. 

“Jarvis! Educate the man!” Tony commanded, waving his arms dramatically at the nearest screen. “ _Home Improvement_  clips, stat!”

Bucky raised an eyebrow but moved to watch. A compilation of two men standing on opposite sides of a fence in what was clearly a sound-stage of a backyard and delivering horribly corny jokes played before his impassive gaze.

“This explains nothing.”

“Philistine,” Tony muttered. 

Showing the future to Steve had been a lot more fun. But, just then, onscreen Tim misinterpreted yet another deep philosophical remark as something crude and Bucky snorted, looking genuinely amused for the first time all day. Ha. Got him.

“Any reason you idiots are quoting these two besides Sam’s name?” Bucky asked, crossing his arms. 

“Jarvis, show him what Tim Taylor does for a living,” Sam suggested, hopping up to sit on a workbench for a better view.

“Hey!” Tony tried to protest, but the video had already switched to a montage of The Toolman blowing things up, electrocuting himself, setting things on fire and launching power tools across the room. “I do not–”

Jarvis, without prompting, switched to a similar montage of early Iron Man tests. Tony winced at the sight of himself slamming into the angled ceiling. Bucky rotated very slowly in place to level a disbelieving glare at him.

“Why am I letting you touch my arm, again?”

“Because I only do the reckless shit with my own gear, thank you very much,” Tony huffed. “I don’t give things out to unsuspecting field agents and civilians without making sure they’re done exploding. Mark Twelve, remember?” Tony pointed at the breakaway arm Bucky had on. “The first one only popped off at the shoulder, and my testers found about six ways to prevent that from working in the first five minutes. The next ten either broke with sharp edges or could be applied at clever angles or didn’t hold up to everyday uses or broke forever once they popped. I test things. Sometimes the tests are a mess, but that’s what they’re for. Now do you want your joints tightened or what?”

Apparently mollified, Bucky moved over to the rolling chair Tony had indicated, next to a bench that was covered in what were presumably arm-tightening tools. 

“You need any extra hands for this, Tones?” Sam asked, sliding down from his perch.

“Nah. I’ve got the bot squad, if I do.”

Dummy chirped hopefully from the corner, lifting his camera.

“No, not you, you horrible prima donna, you’re grounded. You know what you did.”

Sam laughed as the arm-on-wheels managed to look chagrined. “Okay, I’m going to go grab some lunch upstairs. You all want anything?”

“Eh. This shouldn’t take long, but if you don’t see us in like, an hour, send out a search party. With pastrami. And pickles. You like pickles, Barnes?”

Bucky shrugged. “I guess? I eat food.”

Sam gave them a cheery wave as he sauntered out, the workshop doors swishing closed behind him. 

“Uggghhhh you vintage depression-era types are the worst,” Tony rolled his eyes and picked up his tools. “You can dislike things now. You’re not going to starve, there will always be food here.”

“I didn’t say I was worried about that,” Bucky countered, cautiously. 

“You grew up in Steve’s back pocket. I assume some of the same issues are going to crop up. Done the whole defrosted-super-soldier-rehab thing once before, remember? Arm straight out, please.”

“I’m not Steve,” Bucky muttered, sullen, glaring at Tony from behind his hair. He did as instructed, though, mirroring Tony’s gestures under the engineer’s watchful scrutiny. 

“I’m aware,” Tony replied. “Right, let’s pop this off, it’ll be easier to get at the parts I need to mess with on the table.”

He stood back, and it took Bucky a moment to realize he was waiting for the soldier to take the arm off himself. Bucky popped the releases with his other hand, removing the mechanical limb at the shoulder and passing it to Tony.

A few minutes passed, filled only with the sound of metal and plastic pieces clanking together.

“I know you’re not Steve.” Tony eventually reiterated, still bent over the table and facing away from Bucky. “What happened to you after the war is nothing like what happened to him. I’m not trying to claim I know exactly what to do with you just because I know him, okay? I just want you to know I’m not new to this. This is a new problem, but it’s in a discipline I’ve studied.”

“I’m a problem.”

Tony groaned. Way to put your foot in it, Stark.

“Not what I meant.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“I was just trying to make a science metaphor–”

“No. You.” Bucky corrected. “You shouldn’t be taking care of me. I shouldn’t be in your house. I shouldn’t be near Steve.”

That got Tony to look up. “What? Why? You feeling some scraps of programming still in there? You gonna go for him with a butcher knife? I can get your psych guys out here in like two hours tops if you need a session.”

“No.  _No_. I’m good. That’s all gone. It’s,” Bucky managed to scowl and blush at the same time. “Didn’t he tell you?”

Tony stared at him for a second, decoding. He blinked. “That you dumped him again? Yeah. You jerk. Stop doing that, he loves you.”

Bucky gaped at him. 

Tony sighed, and turned to sit against the edge of the bench. “I’m going to tell you a real ugly secret, Klondike, so brace yourself. And do not repeat this to Steve. That thing you’re thinking, that I should be jealous of you, that I wouldn’t want you around because Steve might realize he’s just using me to get through a hard time and the man he  _really_ loves is back now and he doesn’t need me anymore? I think that all the goddam time. I thought that when he was out trying to bring you in, and it made me do stupid shit. I’m not over it. I’m not happy about it. But I love that man, and I’m done hurting him. If it helps him to help you, I’ll do that. If he decides he wants you back, it’s going to break me, but I’ll let him go. So seriously, quit dumping him. Let the man decide what he wants. Don’t force him to settle for me.”

“Settle.” Bucky repeated, unimpressed. “For the billionaire.”

“Money doesn’t buy Steve, don’t tell me you think it does.”

“Genius,” Bucky suggested instead. 

“His best friend ever,” Tony pointed at Bucky’s chest.

“Guy from the future.”

“Guy who know’s what it’s like to be lost in the future.”

“Guy who  _didn’t_ murder dozens of innocents.”

“Nice try, that wasn’t you, and they used to call me the Merchant of Death. Guy who hasn’t slept with like a thousand supermodels.”

“Five’ll get you ten you never took Stevie along on those dates and tried to give him his own girl, then took both dames home yourself.”

“Oh my god, you monster,” Tony laughed. “You win, you’re the worst.”

The door swished open just then, and Steve himself strode in with a tray of sandwiches. Tony could smell the pastrami already.

“What did you win, Buck?” Steve inquired, smiling. Presumably happy to see the two of them looking like they were getting along. Possibly happy just to see Bucky at all, since the ex-assassin had been avoiding him lately.

“Biggest asshole competition,” Tony supplied. He reached for a sandwich as Steve blinked at him.

“Well, I hope you washed your tools when you were done measuring.”

Tony choked on the bite of sandwich he’d already stuffed in his mouth. 

“Now Stevie,” Bucky drawled, “You know he didn’t mean that literally,” Tony tried desperately to finish chewing before Bucky could complete that thought. There was no way that look on his face didn’t mean further mischief. “If it’d been literal Tony would’ve won, he’s spent a lot more time with the New Steve than I have.”

Yup. Tony was going to die of sandwich inhalation. He knew he should be pleased that Bucky’s horrifically inappropriate sense of humor was cropping up more and more often, but this was unfair. 

“You’re both the worst,” Tony coughed, “Horrible. Dirty old men. Out of my shop.”

“Aw, Tony…” Steve reached for his shoulder, his tone consoling but his grin still teasing.

“No. Out,” Tony ducked away. “The worst, the absolute worst, both of you. You deserve each other, get out.”

He knew Steve well enough to catch the brief flicker of pain in his eyes, at that. Shit. 

“So. What do you win for being the biggest asshole?” Steve asked. He probably thought he was steering the conversation back to safer ground. Oh no. “Should I play?”

“Uh.” Tony stuffed his mouth full of more sandwich rather than answer. If he was hoping Barnes would come up with a lie for him while he stalled, that hope was dashed by the utterly sheepish look on Bucky’s face. 

Steve’s eyes narrowed a few notches. An eyebrow started to rise. “Jarvis? Should I be worried?”

“I detect no immediate threat to the health and safety of those in the room, Captain.” Jarvis answered. “Beyond that, it does not seem the sort of conversation I should report on without cause.”

“Well, that’s a start,” Steve allowed, crossing his arms. “But you’re both looking like I caught you with your hands in the cookie jar, so I’ll ask again, what’s the prize for being the biggest asshole?”

“No prize for winning,” Tony admitted, to the floor. “Prize for not winning is you.”

Steve stared at them silently for a few seconds. 

“Unbelievable,” he finally whispered. He took a deep, shaky breath, staring furiously into the middle distance. “Guess I’ll just move back to my old suite then, since neither of you wants me.”

“That’s not–” Tony started, but Steve cut him off.

“You just had a  _competition_ where the  _winner_ gets to  _not be with me_ ,” Steve gritted out.

“No, we had an awkward backwards pissing contest about how fucked up we both are and how you’re too good for us, it wasn’t like a real thing–”

“Yeah,” Steve scoffed, “Great common ground there, you can have a little club where you practice rejecting me. Buck’s an expert, he’ll give you lessons.”

“You think that was easy?” Bucky’s voice was quiet, but ragged at the edges. “You think that was ever easy? I did it for you, punk, and it kills me, but you’re better off.”

“You’re not supposed to decide that all on your own. I get a vote.”

Tony tried to edge away from the conversation, give them some space to inevitably kiss and make up. Maybe go start packing Steve’s clothes up for him and have them moved back down to his old floor.

“Stop,” Steve caught Tony’s arm. 

Tony placed his other hand over Steve’s. “What we had was special, Cap,” Tony said gently, proud of how little his voice shook. “But you know I can’t compete here.”

“Hey!” Bucky was indignant. “Don’t you break my Stevie’s heart. I won the asshole thing, that means you’re supposed to take care of him for me.”

Tony opened his mouth to retort, but then something in the back of his mind went  _ping_ and he stopped dead. 

“Huh,” Tony said instead, cocking his head. Steve and Bucky had apparently gone on arguing in his moment of absent genius, so he cleared his throat. “If I could get the attention of all the nonagenarians in the room,” he waited until they realized he meant them and looked up. “Hi. So. This is a very future-y idea I just had, and you may not be super into it, but this is a thing. Now. These days. 

“Steven. I love you, so very, very much, that I would rather give you up than see you unhappy.” Steve started to object, but Tony held up a hand. “Don’t interrupt, I’m going somewhere with this. Bucky, apparently, would also rather lose you than make you miserable. And you care enough for both of us that you’re having a hard time deciding who to leave out in the cold.

“What if you didn’t have to choose. What if we could just…share?”

Bucky frowned. “Threesomes happened in the forties, Stark.”

“I’m not talking about all of us going to bed together,” Tony explained, “I’m talking about Steve having the freedom to go to bed with whichever one of us he feels like on a given night, cuddle on the couch and watch a movie with whichever, get a quick hug and a kiss in the hallway from whichever one walks by. I’m talking about both of us loving him, and him loving us. I can give him up if I have to but I’d much rather share. Would you?”

Bucky considered it. “I could share,” he decided. “Stevie?”

Steve was glancing back and forth between them, stunned. 

“If you don’t think it’s working, you can just talk to us,” Tony ventured. “Talking is really important in a thing like this. We’ve established that what  _we_ want is for you to be happy. Do you think this might help?”

Steve shrugged helplessly. “Sure? Worth a try, I guess.”

“Good,” Tony clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a shove towards the other soldier. “Spend some time with your sergeant, then, he’s overdue for a cuddle.”

Tony turned back to his work, and studiously ignored the pair of them getting up and moving over to sit on the sofa. Good. That was a Good Thing. 

******************************

Tony was worried, after that first afternoon, that this had been a terrible mistake and he was going to be a giant ball of awkward jealousy for the rest of his life. Or, more likely, the two or three days it would take those idiots to realize they were made for each other and move out. 

The first night without Steve was a bitch. 

The morning after, however, he dragged himself down to the common kitchen for coffee, half-hoping to run into company and let them distract him from the loneliness he was trying to pretend not to feel. The kitchen was empty when he arrived, but soon Bucky staggered in dramatically and exclaimed “What did you TEACH that BOY?” and Tony couldn’t help snorting into his coffee. Steve wandered in right behind him, swatted him playfully and then gave Tony a deep good-morning kiss and a heartfelt “thank you” that thoroughly melted away his anxiety about sleeping alone. 

It didn’t cure the jealousy completely, but it helped Tony feel like there  _was_ a place for him in all this, if he could just find it.

 

For the next week or so, Tony insisted on remaining in the back seat. These two old timers had catching up to do. Steve protested a little, but Bucky kept shooting secret grateful looks at Tony behind Steve’s back, so Tony stood firm. 

Over that week, Tony learned two interesting things:

Thing 1: Steve has a Type.

Tony’d heard enough stories about the Infamous Bucky before the guy turned out to be alive to know that if you used a short enough sentence to sum him up, it could sound like you were describing Tony Stark. Bit short, sassy motherfucker, dark hair, likes Steve. What Tony was now realizing is that the sentence didn’t need to be nearly that short for that trick to work.

For example, he may not be on the same kind of certified-genius-tier as Tony, but Bucky Barnes was sharp as a tack and mechanically minded. There was a whole row of motorcycles down in the main garage whose care and restoration Tony had signed over to Steve years ago. It made him wince to watch Cap trying to figure out some of the newer systems, but as many mistakes as he might make, it had made him happy to have the project, so Tony had forced himself to stand back and let him play.

Bucky took one look at Steve’s game Attempts To Engine and started tearing his hair out. Tony wasn’t about to crash their sessions (he’d definitely take over if he got too close) but if he was fed up with his own work sometimes he’d have Jarvis pull up that one security tape of the first time they’d pulled out the slick little custom Ducati.

“ _Oh…oh my god, Stevie you nitwit, what did you do to these nuts? No, this is not okay, this is not a warzone it’s a SKYSCRAPER MANSION that belongs to an ENGINEER there has to be literally one of every tool man has ever made in this place do not tell me you’ve been hacking it with the closest standard socket wrench these are METRIC you’ve RUINED them…”_

The look of pure anguish on Barnes’s face at the sight of all those stripped fasteners was gold in itself. The satisfaction of watching him properly remove and replace them all was grade-A therapy for Tony’s mechanical soul. 

Thing 2: Steve is a  **dick**.

Not entirely true.

Steve Rogers is, more accurately, an enormous perfect cinnamon roll who is too pure for this world and several others, with a secret seething core of molten mischief. Tony had always known it was in there, but Bucky had a gift for bringing it to the surface like wow. 

Near the end of the week he’d spent standing back, Tony happened to wander past the rec room late in the evening. Hearing a healthy mix of laughter, swearing, and Nintendo noises, he poked his head in the door to see whose friendship was currently lying in pieces on Rainbow Road. 

Steve was hunched over a controller on the left end of the couch, leaning subconsciously back and forth as his character screeched around curves. Bucky was perched to his right, cackling over having just taken the lead. Cap wasn’t terrible at videogames, actually, but he hadn’t played all that much when he’d lived at the tower before. He was not winning and he was spitting blue fire about it. In his own way.

“Consarn’ cheatin’ sonova GET BACK HERE I swear I will end you I don’t care if you’re the princess of space I don’t care if you’re the princess of FRANCE I will knock you into next week no no NO NO GET–” 

Bucky cackled louder. “Steeevieeeee! I can’t hear you you’re to far awayyyy!! Oh wait, I think I’m about to pass you. Bread’n’Butter!” 

Tony watched, fascinated, as Barnes raised his left hand to wave cheerily at the screen and Steve, eyes sparkling, reached up and smacked him right behind the elbow. Of the breakaway arm.

A bright-blue foam-rubber-coated forearm flew across the room and bounced off the TV.

“STEVIE NO!!” Bucky gasped.

_**“STEVIE YES.”** _

Tony clapped both hands over his face to stifle his giggles, but Bucky was far too busy trying valiantly to drive one-handed to notice. It was a doomed effort though, and in the end Steve spent most of the last lap being beaten over the head with a throw pillow while Bucky’s character idled slowly in place where she’d gotten wedged up against a wall. 

“You cheating cheater!” Bucky roared, tackling him outright once he crossed the finish line.

“What’sa matter, Buck?” Steve giggled from where he was now bent backwards over the armrest of the sofa. “You kept saying you could beat me at this with one hand tied behind your back, I just wanted to see if it was true!”

Tony tried to retreat quietly, but Steve must have caught him out of the corner of his eye.

“Tony, save me!” he cried dramatically, still grinning, “I’ve been framed!”

“Framed?” Tony replied skeptically, fighting for a straight face. “So that wasn’t you I just saw disarming this poor man?”

“ _Disarming_?” Bucky popped up from behind the back of the couch, looking betrayed. “Seriously?”

“I reserve the right to make as many bad jokes about my own tech as I want.”

Steve chose that moment to start struggling for freedom. A few seconds’ scuffle ended with a loud pop, Bucky on the floor, and Steve perched halfway off the couch over him with his now-detached upper arm in his hand. 

“Rogers!!” Bucky sputtered. “Give that back!”

“Nope!” Steve hadn’t looked like he’d meant to take it, actually, but now he was laughing again. He tossed the blue bicep at Tony. “Keepaway!”

“OH GOD NO,” Tony laughed, retreating into the hallway. “Baseline human over here, I did not sign up for this horse play!” 

“Run, Tony!” Steve shouted, tackling Bucky. 

They rolled, Bucky came up with the discarded forearm in his good hand and started slapping Steve across the face with its limp palm. Breakaway finger joints flew everywhere. 

“Augh! I changed my mind. Save me, Tony!”

“Save ME,” Bucky growled, playful but pissed. “This asshole cheats!”

“Oh, fuck it,” Tony vaulted over the couch and pounced on them both, tickling Steve mercilessly. 

“GAHHHHH!” Steve cried, reduced at once to a flailing mess under his assault. “I give! Uncle! Dirty pool!”

“Ha HA!” Tony threw his arms up in victory. “Brains over brawn, biatches.”

“And to the victor go the spoils,” Bucky agreed, shoving them both off him. “Take this one with you.”

“Nooooooo,” Steve pretended to protest. “He’s mean, he tickles.”

Tony shot a more serious questioning look at Barnes over Steve’s shoulder. “You sure?”

“What’s the point of sharing if you don’t take the little punk of my hands once in a while?” Bucky said haughtily, swiping hair out of his face. “Oh, sorry,  _hand_.” He looked pointedly at Steve. 

“One hand and a pile of dismantled servos,” Tony pointed out helpfully. 

“C’mon, you heard the man,” Steve said cheerfully. He scooped Tony up in his arms as he stood. “Time for Tony’s turn.”


	3. Bu...ony? Buckony? Bony?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (I'm aware that Bucky/Tony is usually called WinterIron, but a nice tidy ship name sort of implies two people who have some kind of idea of what the flying fuck they're trying to accomplish, don't it?)

“Mmm, Buck…”

“Guess again.”

“Oh  _shit_ ,” Steve sat back sharply, clapping a hand over his mouth. “Tony I’m so sorry.”

“Okay, I hope that apology was for the move you just pulled there, because ow,” Tony groused, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like I don’t know you have another boyfriend, Steve, it was kind of my idea.”

“But that was  _so rude_ , that’s not okay.”

“Yes, jumping up suddenly in the middle of delicate maneuvers is very rude, it’s very punishing to my fragile body and you need to be more gentle.”

“Tony…”

“Oh my god, Steve, it’s fine, it’s not like you were even looking at my face, you were doing some things you’ve most recently been doing with him, force of habit, I’m not insulted.”

Steve’s expression softened slightly, but he still looked like he’d been kicked in the heart. 

“It’s very important to me,” Steve began hesitantly, slowly lowering himself back to where he’d been wound up in Tony’s eager (and naked) embrace, “That you both know you are  _not_ interchangeable.” He paused to plant a very firm kiss on Tony’s lips. “I’m not just…trying to get laid and whoever happens to volunteer is okay by me. You  _matter_ and I  _love you_  and what I have with you isn’t exactly the same as how I feel about Buck, but you’re both so important and I don’t want to ruin this.”

“You’re too precious, Rogers. Too good for the both of us.” Tony ruffled the soldier’s hair and kissed him lightly on the forehead. “However, I am, currently, trying to get laid, and I’ve been very patient so far but I don’t have all month here, Cap.”

****

Tony tried very hard to let the afterglow carry him into a nice, peaceful sleep the way it used to, but something Steve had said was sticking unpleasantly in his brain.

“What’s the difference?” Tony whispered, mostly to himself.

“Hmmm?” Supersoldier hearing: functional.

“You said you don’t feel the same way about me that you do about Bucky,” Tony tried not to sound petulant about it, but he wasn’t sure he’d managed.

“Mmhmm.”

“Well?”

“Mmmphhh,” Steve spooned up tighter behind Tony, throwing an arm over his waist. “Don’t you usually fall asleep after?”

“You’re dodging the question.”

“Because I don’t know how to explain it and I’m gonna mess it up.”

“Try, sweetheart.”

Steve sighed, a heavy gust of warm breath washing over the back of Tony’s neck. 

“I’ve only ever known one Tony Stark.”

“Pretty sure I’m the only one.”

“You want me to hash this out you’re going to have to put a lid on that sass.”

“Impossible, but I’ll try.”

“So. I’ve only known the one Tony. The Tony you are now,” Steve clarified. “A grown man who knows better, who’s already been through hell and made his mistakes. All that crazy stuff the press still won’t let go, it was over before I got here. I know you, as you are, grown and wise and doing your best.

“I knew Bucky when he was knee-high to a grasshopper and I was even smaller. I knew the Bucky Barnes whose biggest achievement in life was finally winning that cat’s-eye marble he wanted off the kid down the street, I knew the Bucky who thought he owned the world because he was fifteen and handsome and liked to mouth off to teachers. I knew the Buck who had to grow up all at once when he got his draft card, and I knew the Buck who hit the ground running out of that Hydra prison and became one of the finest fighting men in that whole damn war.

“He’s part of me. We’re natural together. I know him up and down and backwards. Us being together just sort of…grew into place. I didn’t ever decide to court Buck; never had to consider, ‘Am I interested in this man?’ and decide ‘yes’. He’s just part of me. 

“I chose you. I met you full-grown and thought to myself, ‘I want that’. I saw everything about the you that you are now and I fell, hard. It’s a different kind of love. A different flavor. And it’s  _wonderful_.”

Tony let the silence ring for a few seconds, until he was sure Steve was done.

“Well shit, Cap,” he finally muttered. “You been writing that essay for a while?”

“Yes.”

“You would.”

******************************************

Tony swiped again at the floating holographic schematic for Sam’s new wings. The interface wasn’t responding properly today. The whole room was misbehaving, honestly. All fuzzy around the edges and swaying slightly. Black Sabbath sort of sounded like it was playing out of a tin can on the bottom of the ocean, too, but every time he yelled at Jarvis to fix the speakers the damn sassmonster just slurred back at him that there was nothing wrong. 

Of course there was something wrong. Everything was wrong and…and…the wrong was familiar but Tony just couldn’t put his finger on it. Like it was a problem he’d solved a long time ago and forgotten about.

He glared balefully at the schematic, which was currently upside-down and zoomed in to an unhelpful degree. He swiped at it again. Now all the text was in French. 

Ah. Now it was finally getting smaller. But he hadn’t done that. Tony looked at his hands. They weren’t moving. Well. The floor behind them seemed to be moving? What?

Tony looked up again. A different desk was in front of him, this one containing a pastrami sandwich and a bottle of water instead of an obstinate schematic. Tony cocked his head to the side.

“Steve?” he asked the sandwich.

“Close, but no cigar,” rumbled a different, deep voice from behind him.

Tony tipped his head back until he was looking straight up, through a curtain of dark hair at a very sheepish-looking ex-assassin.

“You’re not Steve,” Tony observed. 

“Nope,” Bucky agreed. “But I promised him I’d make sure you were fed and watered while he was away.”

“Oh.” Tony blinked a few times and slumped toward the sandwich. “I’m not hungry?”

“Yeeees you are…” Bucky circled Tony’s chair with a sigh and pushed the plate at him. “You’ve been down here for seventy-two hours straight. You maybe had a smoothie at some point. You’re, like, slowly dying please eat.”

Tony’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Can’t be down here that long. Steve would stop me. Jarvis yells at people until somebody stops me.”

“Yeah,” Bucky put his face in his hands. “I was getting the alerts. I thought it was a joke.”

Tony poked the sandwich. “Not a joke. Safety protocols. Steve gets mad. He broke the door once.” Tony looked up at him very seriously. “Don’t lock Steve out, you’ll have to buy new doors.” 

“I thought he was pulling my leg!” Bucky exclaimed, throwing his arms wide. “ ‘Gee Buck, better make sure the actual genius doesn’t starve to death in his own house’. Yeah sure Stevie, just like I’m supposed to report directly to the colonel for more chocolate rations or how Sister Mary would LOVE to teach us to play poker. I’m sure that’s  _absolutely_ a real thing.”

Tony giggled, helpless, tilting toward the desk. Oh. The desk was softer than expected. And smelled faintly like a deli. “Steve’s a dick.”

“He’s a fucking asshole is what he is,” Bucky agreed, gently nudging Tony’s face off of the sandwich. “And he really, really does not need to know this happened. Right?”

“Anything you say, sandwich.”

**

Tony woke with a start, throwing his hands out to catch himself. Why was he falling. Oh. Because he was on the workshop couch. Hadn’t slept there in a while. Forgot it was a lot narrower than a California King mattress. Tony blinked into the darkness. Something was off, besides the couch being narrow. 

The same old faint shop-noises were all there, CPU’s humming, fans whirring, bots trundling around pretending to be useful…and from somewhere over Tony’s right shoulder, there was a faint voice. He focused on it until he could pick out the words, then felt his blood run cold. Oh no.

“…Barnes…James Buchanan…Sergeant…32557038…Barnes…James Buchanan…”

“Bucky?” Tony craned his neck toward the sound. 

“Sergeant…3255..”

“Hey, Buck, it’s okay,” Tony sat up slowly. The soldier’s blank eyes fixed on him. 

“…0738. Barnes, James Buchanan–”

“Yeah, uhuh, Tony Stark, Iron Man, no serial but I think my social starts with a five. Or I guess you probably shouldn’t tell your social to kidnappers anyway? Probably for the best I never learned it, then. J, give us some light in here.”

Tony watched him cautiously for any change in expression as the lights faded in

“You with me buddy? Bucky?” he asked softly, keeping his posture loose and casual. “Buckaroo? Buckeroni and cheese? Jim-Buck-Tu? Buck Ro–” oh, no, no thank you, not Buck  _Rogers_ , that was not a set of words about to come out of Tony’s mouth right now actually, “–Duck Dodgers in the 24th-and-a-half century?” Yes, excellent word association, fuck. 

Bucky’s blank stare was getting a bit less dead-eyed and a lot more incredulous. 

“You ever see that cartoon? They had Daffy Duck in your day, right? I mean you’re from the forties, not the stone age. Jarvis when was that short made?” 

“There have been a number of Looney Tunes shorts featuring that character, sir, although I’m afraid the earliest was not produced until 1953,” Jarvis supplied.

“Damn, wasted reference.”

“Um,” Bucky looked disoriented as hell, but hey, he made a noise. Tony waited for him to go on, although it seemed to take a few tries. “They uh. Made some kind of Buck Rogers…cartoons? With Daffy Duck?” 

“Well, sort of. Jarvis my boy, main screen! Hit us with the original.”

Tony scooted over on the sofa and patted the space next to him. It took about half a cartoon for Bucky to warm up enough to accept the offer, but eventually the cushions dipped under his weight and Tony finally felt himself relax.

When the first short was over, Bucky complained loudly that it had nothing to do with Buck Rogers after all, Tony argued for the sake of it, insults were thrown, pillows were thrown, and many, many more Looney Tunes were played. Barnes had a lot to say about how the cartoons got “damn strange” as the twentieth century progressed.

“Oh my god, remind me to show you  _Space Jam_  sometime,” Tony laughed, clapping his hands in delight at the idea. “Not yet, though, god, you’re not ready. One does not simply walk into the nineties.” He sighed wistfully. “Or the eighties, really. That’s where most of my dumb comfort cartoons come from. Hard for, uh,” Tony stumbled over the darker truth that was coming up. “Hard for my brain to tell me I’m dying in a cave or stranded in outer space when He-Man is doing his thing, all sword-waving and bright colors and fur speedos. Steve doesn’t care for those, though. He’s more of a hot-shower-and-a-cup-of-cocoa guy on his bad nights. Cold’s his big trigger, anyway.”

“I know what you’re doing,” Bucky broke in with mild reproach, giving Tony a side-eye.

“What.”

“You’re trying to tell me I’m not the only one who freaks out sometimes, without actually saying to my face you think I’m dumb enough to think that.”

“Well.” Tony huffed, indignant. “Everybody who’s lived here has had some kind of flashbacks, and I’ve caught almost all of them trying to hide it. Just saying.”

“You play your he-men for Natasha when  _her_ ghosts come knocking?”

“Oh god no. Usually I’d find her in the gym doing ballet at three in the morning,” Tony stretched back against the couch, allowing himself a fond smile. God, he missed the old team sometimes. “Although an offering of ginger cookies and tea left in the communal kitchen on those nights was known to produce a general decrease in menacing glares the next day.” 

A few moments passed in silence, both of them grinning at the idea of Natasha furtively nibbling ginger cookies in the dead of night. Or that’s what Tony was picturing, anyway. He assumed Bucky was thinking along the same lines.

“So,” Tony went on quietly. “You don’t have to answer this. But if you know what set you off, there, and you’re willing to tell me, I can do my part to try and prevent it, next time.”

Bucky sighed and let his head tip back over the top of the sofa, tilting his face to the ceiling. “The chair,” he mumbled. “Waking up sitting upright, with, uh, tools around. Not ideal.”

“Noted,” Tony gave a curt nod. “I’ll make you move if I see you nodding off in a chair again, especially in the workshop. Jarvis if I don’t catch it, you alert him. Got it?”

“Of course, sir,” the AI responded smoothly.

Bucky rolled his face sideways and gave Tony a  _look_. Try as he might, Tony couldn’t read that face. “Thanks, I guess,”  Bucky grumbled eventually.

Tony waved him off. “Meh, that’s an easy one. Cap makes me sleep in a damn sauna the way he keeps the thermostat set, but then he hogs the covers, so it evens out. My big one is usually, uh, just the dark, but hey I come with a built-in nightlight, so no problem.” Tony winced at his own flippancy, trained to expect a gentle scolding. Somewhere halfway across the country, Steve was rolling his eyes and experiencing a strong desire to hug, and didn’t know why.

Bucky blinked slowly at him, brows furrowing. “A…built in…what?”

Tony raised an incredulous eyebrow and gestured at his chest like Vanna White at a vowel. 

Bucky’s features twisted in horror. He sat up and turned to face Tony properly, leaning in and staring at the faint glow of the reactor from behind Tony’s shirt.

“That’s _in you?!_ ” 

“Yes?”

“WHY??”

“I need it? To live? Why did  _you_ think I had a big ol’ lightbulb in my sternum?”

“I thought it was some kinda future-fashion! And I thought you were just  _wearing_ it!”

“…nobody else has one?”

“You’re rich! Maybe they’re expensive, I dunno!” Bucky reached for the light, but hesitated as he seemed to realize what he was doing. He swallowed heavily. “What does it do.”

“Ah,” Tony sighed and stripped his off his t-shirt. Might as well show him properly. No sense blushing about scars in front of Bucky, of all people. “Well, it’s an arc reactor, little bitty one, and originally it was powering a special magnet because there was some shrapnel wedged into some really inconvenient places in there, and if the magnet wasn’t holding them back they’d wiggle into my heart within a few minutes, super not fun, very dead Tony, not a good time,” Steve would hate him for his tone right now, but if Tony didn’t make light of these things they’d crush him flat, so. “Eventually decided, wow, living on the razor’s edge here, maybe I should probably have the tiny death-shards taken out of my vital organs. Had some surgery. Only my dumb stupid heart was so scarred up by then I needed a pacemaker for it, so now that’s what the reactor does. Makes my heart beat.”

Tony lined up his fingers along the sides of the casing and popped the releases, intending to show Barnes a few details of its workings up close. As soon as the reactor started to move, though, Tony was assaulted by a loud, panicked cry of “JESUS!” and a big beefy super-soldier palm smacking into the center of his chest, popping it back in.

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR  _ **MIND?!**_  YOU’LL  **DIE**!”

Tony blinked, stunned, into wide grey eyes just inches from his own. He was seized by a strong urge to hug the poor man and tell him everything was fine, but remembered in time that that was Steve’s territory. Instead, he patted the soldier’s shoulder.

“Easy there, terminator, I did invent the thing, I know how it works. I’ve got about ten hours of backup battery power in me, I’m okay.” Nice of him to be concerned, though.

“…oh,” Bucky’s hand lingered for a while, pressed flat over the reactor, ensuring it was still securely in place. An intensely visceral memory washed over Tony, of the same look of terror on Steve’s face when he’d first learned what the little circle of light was for, and of Steve’s hand pressed similarly over his heart. Huh. Bucky drew a harsh, shuddering breath, snapping Tony back to the present. “Jesus, Stark, don’t scare a guy like that.”

“Sorry,” Tony offered with a crooked shrug. “You know how I get with my toys.”

“You’re a damn show-off is how you get,” Bucky snorted, finally leaning away and taking back his hand. Tony missed the warmth. What? That couldn’t be right. Must be missing Steve.

“Guilty as charged,” Tony replied, pulling his shirt back on. 

“So anyway,” Bucky was staring rather fixedly at the blank TV screen when Tony finished dressing and looked back at him. “I resent you thinking I can’t handle your cartoons and I demand to see this man-him or whatever he’s called.”

“He-Man, and you do not know what you’re asking for,” Tony laughed.

“Horsefeathers,” Bucky retorted.

Tony choked slightly. “Okay, grandpa, you asked for it. Jarvis?”

“Shall I begin with episode one, sir?”

“Nah,” Tony grinned wickedly. “Let’s hit him with the HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA!”

“The what.” Bucky stared blankly.

“Sir, I feel compelled to point out, that video has almost nothing to do with the program itself,” Jarvis drawled, long-suffering.

“I did not ask for opinions I asked for a video,  _play it_.”

*******

Several days passed before Bucky’s next visit to the workshop of any significance (although he now followed a strict make-Tony-take-care-of-himself schedule). Days in which Sam learned how dangerous it now was to ask the question “What’s going on?” anywhere Bucky and Tony could hear you–at least, dangerous if you didn’t want to be on the receiving end of any falsetto renditions of 4 Non Blondes songs. This was, also, how they found out Clint had dropped by for a visit, as he literally dropped out of a vent just to join in. 

Eventually, though, Bucky needed to be engineered at again. 

“Brung you something, Stark,” Sam sang out from the doorway, ushering Bucky in ahead of him and hanging back. “No memes this time! You’re ruining this poor man.”

“You’re not the boss of me!” Tony protested. “Jarvis! Uhhh…ooh! Nyan cat, stat!”

The opening music-box notes wafted through the workshop, and Sam bolted, his protracted “Noooooooooo!” fading into the distance. Bucky stepped up in front of the TV, head tipped to the side and a puzzled grin on his face.

“You’re just an endless fountain of weird shit, aren’t you.”

“Hey, I didn’t make any of this stuff, I just know where to find it,” Tony countered, flitting around between tables. “Shit I’m not quite ready, I need a few more minutes here, uh, Jarvis, help, distract the man, play, uh, Gangnam Style, that should do it. Don’t be alarmed if you don’t understand the words to this one, they’re in Korean. Or do you speak Korean?”

“I have no idea. If I won’t understand it why am I…?” Bucky’s eyes widened as the music video got underway. “Why am I watching this.”

“Because to this day if you went down any street in New York doing that dance you’d probably have fifteen people doing it with you by the end of the block.”

“I do not believe you, this is a set up, you’re trying to get me to embarrass myself.”

“I didn’t say you had to  _actually do it_ ,” Tony rolled his eyes, surreptitiously arranging something under a sheet on a workbench. “If you don’t believe me, though–Jarvis, where’s Clint? Give me a live feed, please,” a security feed of Clint making a sandwich upstairs took over the TV. “Perfect. Pipe some Gangnam into that room, J.”

Onscreen, Clint went on making his sandwich, but dropped subconsciously into a head-bobbing rhythm that spread across his frame as the song built. Hips started to swing. Feet started to stomp. At the chorus he slammed the mayonnaise-covered knife in his hand down on the counter, spun around to point dramatically at the door–where Sam had just stopped dead on the threshold–and practically screamed “OPPAN GANGNAM STYLE!” before throwing up his arms and dropping into the exact horse-riding-esque step from the video. 

“This proves nothing, Clint is always embarrass–”

Sam, who had looked beseechingly heavenward when he first entered, turned his eyes back to Clint just in time to call out in synch with the song, “AYYYYYYY SEXY LAY-DAY!” and fell into step, stomping right along. Bucky’s jaw hit the floor.

“Well shit. Okay. I believe you.”

“Good. Gaslighting is Steve’s area of expertise, apparently, I don’t dare I’d be too good at faking evidence. Have a seat, champ, we’re ready here.”

Bucky dropped into the chair as the music tapered out and the screen went dark, allowing the dance party upstairs to carry on in privacy. He cocked a challenging eyebrow at Tony, as the engineer stood poised before him.

“Okay.” Tony began. “Okay okay. So. This is a big step I’ve been working on, and you don’t have to go for it right now, but it’s ready to show off and you can do it now if you want, so, okay,” he took a deep breath, fingers steepled in front of his face. “You can keep the breakaway if you still want it, if it still helps, but I–and your team, Jesus, I did not try to decide this on my own, don’t panic–but your psych team and I think you’re out of the woods. As far as being likely to strike out at people you’d rather not hurt.

“So this. This is not a real weapon, it’s not made for combat, yet, we can talk about that another time, but this is…something more for every day. Something a little more useful, that’s not going to spring a finger when you’re trying to open a jar of pickles–and don’t think I didn’t notice you turned out to  _super love_  pickles–but it’s actuated to be about as strong as a baseline human and it doesn’t fall apart and, well,” Tony tugged the sheet off of his work. “Ta da?”

The arm on the table was a gleaming silver, almost chrome, and it looked  _nothing_ like Bucky’s old one. This one had “Tony” written all over it, all but literally. The design was sleek and subtle, but more angular, more like Iron Man.

“What do you think?” Tony asked, voice quaking a bit more than he’d like.

“It’s like…” Bucky reached out his flesh hand to run his fingers over the contours. “It’s like  _art_. It sort of, uh, it looks like if Iron Man had a body inside the armor, this is what his arm would look like.”

“Well, aesthetically, I can change it, can do all kinds of things with the outside, paint job, it doesn’t have to be all shiny but, uh, I tried making some that looked like skin and that was some pretty serious uncanny valley shit I’d rather not go that direction–”

“Tony.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s beautiful. I love it. Can I have it?”

The surge of butterflies in Tony’s chest took him by surprise. Well. Always nice to be appreciated? 

“Obviously,” Tony scoffed, pushing that unsettling feeling aside. “I didn’t make it to hang over my mantle.”

Bucky grinned up at him and popped off the blue breakaway arm, handing it over. Tony took it and set it aside, and went to work adjusting the mounting that was built into Bucky’s shoulder. Wow. Had messing with this circuitry always been so…personal? Tony felt like he was way up in Bucky’s space, and he was, fingers occasionally somewhat  _inside_ –okay, no, bad brain, stop that, Steve’s territory, big “keep out” sign on the door, highly inappropriate. Keep this clinical. This is a  _repair_. Or something.

Tony shook himself out of his thoughts (mostly) and managed the rewiring within a few minutes, then carefully attached the new arm. It was bolted more solidly into place than the breakaway, but could still be removed quickly by a skilled hand for replacements and repairs. 

“Okay,” Tony huffed, climbing to his feet against the bench. “Basic settings at the moment, how does that feel?”

Bucky clenched and unclenched his new fist, rolled his wrist, bent his elbow, rolled his shoulder. “Smooth,” he commented appreciatively. “Lot more heft than the breakaway.” He stood, moving both arms in tandem, out to the sides and over his head. “Balanced! Shit, this might be the first time I’ve weighed the same on both sides since 1945!”

“Not an accident,” Tony preened slightly, turning a wrench over in his hands.

“You do a lotta shit on accident, Stark, but not when it ends up bolted to somebody you care about.”

“Thank…you?” Tony laughed a little. “I think? Anyway, how’s the feedback?”

Bucky rapped his knuckles against the bench, then poked the surface gently, then stroked a finger along it. “Solid, maybe a little more accurate than the old one. Hopefully not too many broken cell phones and door handles in my near future.”

“Okay. Cool. Good. So. Time for the fun part,” Tony took a deep breath. “There’s some uh, gesture based controls built in, so do like this?”

Tony tucked his own left arm against his side, elbow out at a ninety degree angle from his waist, and Bucky mimicked him. Fingers of the left hand together as if to call “paper” in rock-paper-scissors, then folded at a right angle towards the palm. Finally, Tony stroked his thumb across the side of his index finger several times, like he was trying to turn a scroll wheel. Bemused, Bucky did the same.

“Yes. Like that. Now, one more time…” Tony pointed to the workbench, watching Bucky’s expression melt into comprehension, “…with feeling.”

Trembling, Bucky reached for the bench again, this time placing his palm flat against the surface. “Holy shit…” he laid his other hand next to it, and let his eyes fall shut. “Tony what did you  _do_?”

The arm Hydra had given Bucky had only ever been able to detect basic pressures and extreme temperatures. Limited by other concerns and time constraints, the breakaway arm had provided even less sensory feedback. For this one, Tony had aimed higher. 

“Revolutionized a couple of scientific fields, no big, it’s what I do, all I needed was a reason.” He bounced on the balls of his feet, giddy with success. 

“It’s, I can’t…” Bucky picked up a screw in his right hand, eyes still closed, rolled it between his fingers for a moment, then passed it to the other hand and did the same. “Tony  _I can’t tell the difference_. It’s a goddam _real arm_  how did you do this?”

“Science!!” Tony enthused, fist-pumping in the air. He let himself slip into the ramble about nerves and signals and sensor grids, not knowing how much Bucky might understand, hardly listening to the words pouring out of his own mouth because it was so  _precious_ , just watching him  _touch_ things. Bucky’s hands wandered to his own shirt, rolling the fabric between his fingers. To his face, brushing over stubbly cheeks and running through his hair, and then both hands tangling together. A mildly uncomfortable look passed over Bucky’s face, then, presumably at the cognitive dissonance of his left hand saying “I am a hand, holding a hand” and his right reporting “I am a hand, holding a hunk of metal”. Impulsively, wanting that discomfort gone, Tony reached out and seized the new hand, holding it in both of his own as his ramble continued.

“–so it’s never going to be completely body-temperature all the time because too much heat is bad for pretty much everything in there but it won’t ever get  _too_ cold on the surface, you know how Steve hates cold, don’t want him shying away from your whole left…uh…”

Still with his eyes closed, Bucky had leaned smoothly into Tony’s space. His right hand came up to cover Tony’s where they already held his left, then drifted up to rest softly against Tony’s face, cupping his jaw. A tiny smile tugged at the corners of Bucky’s mouth, which Tony watched, fascinated, as the metal hand rose to the cradle the back of his head. 

When Bucky’s eyes finally opened, they were bright with tears.

“Thank you.”

Even with the security footage in hand, Tony would never be sure which of them had moved first, but all at once there was no space between them, only the warm press of a broad chest against his and the soft slide of lips and the cool weight of Bucky’s new hand against his scalp and the heady, relieved rush of _oh I think he likes me too_ –and then very very intense panic. 

Tony leapt backwards with such force he tripped immediately over his own feet and went sprawling. 

“Oshit,” Bucky whispered, with an I-fucked-up grimace, “I’m so sorry, that was not–”

“Shit shit shit,” Tony gasped, pushing himself up to sit on the hard concrete and nursing his elbow where it’d hit the floor. That was gonna leave a mark. “Uh. This is a problem.”

“Look, I’m sorry, we don’t have to–”

“No, no, this is a problem, because I liked that.”

“Oh,” Bucky blushed a bit. “So did I? Isn’t that the opposite of a problem?”

“Steve. Exists.”

“Uhhh….”

“You have any conversations with him about…?” Tony waved a hand between the two of them.

“No. No I have not.”

“Then we have a problem.”


	4. STUCKONY.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's about time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this got long sorry not sorry.

“I know you know what time it is, Stark,” Bucky’s voice echoed through the workshop as he came in, “Bed, soldier, hup-to, on the double.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Tony’s mouth replied by rote, without any conscious input.

“I am so. I was duly appointed,” Bucky scoffed. He came to a stop just behind Tony, hands resting on the back of Tony’s chair. “You’re supposed to listen to me. Even Pepper said so.”

“When the hell did you meet Pepper?”

“Yesterday? She had lunch with us? Right here?” Bucky stared down at him incredulously. “You are way too far gone if you don’t remember that. What’re you working on that’s got you so…?” 

Bucky looked up at the screens in front of Tony and blinked. Tony hunched a little, almost apologetic but not quite ashamed.

“Well. Those are not blueprints.” Bucky observed, breaking the awkward silence. 

“Mmhmm.”

“You, uh. Is there a project here, or you just feelin’ lonely?”

Tony sighed up at the screen, which was arrayed with a few dozen different images of Steve he’d clipped out of tower security recordings. “I keep trying to come up with something to make for him,” Tony explained with a shrug, “Then I’d have an excuse. But I got nothing.”

“So you’re down here just…staring at Steve.”

“I’m allowed.”

“Pretty sure he wouldn’t want you doin’ it at the expense of your own health.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I’m lots of fun, you just won’t let me prove it until we talk to that one,” Bucky waved at the screen. “Once he gets back you better watch out. You won’t know what hit you.”

Tony managed to drag his eyes away from the screen long enough to level a wry, rueful smile at Bucky. “I admire your optimism, robocop, but there’s a couple of big assumptions you’re leaving in the dust there.”

“Assuming the worst ain’t gonna make waiting any easier. Let me dream.”

Tony huffed a quiet laugh of acquiescence and turned back to the screen.

“You just wait,” Bucky insisted, jabbing him in the shoulder. “We’ll take you out. Dancing. Sweep you off your damn feet.”

“If you’re counting on Cap’s help for that, you might want to set aside a few years to train him up first,” Tony drawled back, a hesitant smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Despite my best efforts, a very slow waltz is still about all he can manage. After maybe three songs of remembering which foot is the left one. I suggest steel-toed boots.”

A nice long beat of stunned silence followed.

Barnes facepalmed so hard Tony  _heard_ it. 

“ _God give me strength, Stevie_ ,” he growled into his hands. “Is he STILL telling people he can’t dance?”

Tony, still wondering who had taught Bucky how to facepalm, or whether that had to be taught, or maybe had Tony shown him that himself, intentionally or otherwise, only managed to answer, “Huh?”

“Jesus Christ on a cracker, I know why he said that to CARTER, and I couldn’t blame him then, but why now? Here? To you? What is he gaining?”

Tony blinked rapidly, finally catching up. “Wait, wait.  _Steve can dance?_ ” He blinked again, brows creasing. “No he can’t. I’ve danced with him. Often. He’s awful.”

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a pained sigh. 

“And Aunt Peggy always said he was, in fact, just as bad at it back in the day, she used to tell me she’d wear combat boots to the dance halls when they were on leave. I mean, I doubt she actually did that, but based on my own experience–”

“Oh, god,” Bucky broke in. “Did you tell Steve you’d heard those stories? Before taking him out dancing?”

“Yes?”

“Then he probably feels bad about lying to your Aunt and didn’t want to admit it,” he dragged both hands down his face and rolled his eyes. “Steve. Steve dances like a  _fucking angel_. What he never could learn how to do is  _lead._ ”

Tony stared, head tilted and jaw hanging open. 

“He told Carter,” Bucky began, well-worn patience clearly fraying further with every word, “that he never learned how, because he learned from  _me_. We’d go out to the halls and I’d grab some dame and do my thing while he took a table and watched, then we’d go home and he’d do what he saw the girls doing, and all two times he made it out onto the floor and got into it with his own dame before the war, he’d get it all backwards and start swiveling his tiny adorable ass all over the floor and people  _stared_ , so when Carter came along he panicked and convinced her he had two left feet so he wouldn’t fuck it up and drop into the girls’ steps again. I can’t  _believe_ he’s still pulling that act.”

Tony reeled back slightly, reviewing the memory of every stubbed toe, kicked shin, and sudden change of direction he’d suffered on the dance floor of various galas he’d dragged Steve to.

“Are…are you sure it’s an act?” Tony’s voice came out a bit strangled. “I mean, maybe post-serum…? Surely the size change fucked up his muscle memory? Maybe?”

Bucky cast him a sympathetic gaze. “Jarv? You happen to save video of me’n Stevie last weekend? In the living room?”

“Of course.”

A video from the security feeds replaced Tony’s “I heart Steev” screen, which may or may not have been a mercy, given what popped up instead. The video showed the living room of the suite Bucky had moved into, with all the furniture pushed back against the walls. Taking up every bit of that floor space was something wild and weightless and vaguely vaudevillian and aggressively athletic.

“Lindy hop,” Barnes supplemented from beside Tony. “It’s what everybody was doing, when we were the age for it.” 

Tony nodded along, dimly registering a few familiar moves from when he’d had to learn to do something similar in the far-off times of boarding school past. East-coast swing, he thought it might have been called in class. A subdivision of the jitterbug. Such thoughts were faint behind the waves of emotion swamping him at the sight. 

Betrayal, first. Look at him there, the asshole, Steve, floating over the carpet like he weighed nothing, like he’d never taken a wrong step in his life, orbiting around Bucky with the clear ease of long practice. Tony’s abused shins screamed for justice. 

Arousal, second. Because holy shit. Look at him go. Look at  _them_ go. Bent low, knees kicking out almost comically, slinging each other across the room then wrapping up close and, wow, Buck just, just picked him up right there, bet that was easier when Steve was little but it’s not stopping them, is it, Cap just threw his legs around Buck’s  _neck_ and rolled right up and almost hit the ceiling (and actually there are a couple of dents in that ceiling that make sense, now), and, wow. Tony’s mouth went a bit dry.

Then, warm on the heels of the arousal, a bit of understanding. Even Tony could spot a few things Steve was doing that were very different from what Bucky was doing. Never mind getting it backwards and tripping over your partner, in their time any man openly doing what would have been such an obviously feminine thing as  _whatever the hell Cap was just doing with his ass, there, Jarvis make a .gif of that for later_ , would no doubt find himself on the receiving end of plenty of unwanted attention, possibly from the police. Of course he’d learned to hide this. 

Old habits die hard. Especially when you’d built them in self-defense.

“Well.” Tony eventually managed. “I stand corrected.”

Bucky bumped a hip against Tony’s shoulder, grinning slightly. “Don’t take it too hard. I’ve known him a lot longer. You’ll get good at sniffing out Rogers-brand bullshit, with practice. Meanwhile. It’s still one in the fucking morning. Go to bed already.”

“Pass.”

Tony waved away the video, but didn’t really have anything to replace it with. 

“No, you don’t get to pass, we’ve been over this. I am the boss of you and it is a quarter past no-more-Mr-nice-Bucky,” Tony’s chair started to roll away from the desk, towed by unfairly strong hands.

“Hey!” Tony grabbed the edge of the desk to try and halt his progress, but only succeeded in yanking himself off the chair and making an undignified landing on the hard floor. 

“See, you need sleep, I can tell because you’re turning into an idiot. This is not genius behavior.”

“Fuck you, anything I do is genius behavior. By default. That’s how it works.”

Bucky was not impressed. They stared each other down for a few moments, Tony lost. He glanced away, nonchalant; staring contest, what staring contest? This wall over here is very interesting, have you noticed? Boy I could write a book about this wall. It’s a great wall. A wonder wall, even. 

“Give me a reason,” Bucky offered, barely more than a whisper. It didn’t sound like a threat, just an invitation. “Give me a good reason why staring at Steve is more important than sleep.”

Tony heaved a sigh and huddled up uncomfortably. “I miss him.”

“Well, clearly.”

“No, it’s,” Tony winced at himself. He knew he was being pathetic, but the knowing didn’t help the feeling. “It’s the first time he’s been away since. Y’know. All the stuff.” He sighed. “Since the time I thought he was never coming back.”

“Aw, Tones…”

Tony hid his face. Hardly anyone ever called him  _Tones_. Mostly Rhodey, sometimes Steve if the moment was just right. Sam did, but it was hard to tell if he meant anything by it. Clint had, once, and then promptly made a horrified face at himself because apparently that was half a shade too fond for their friendship (being, as it was, comprised almost entirely of mutual and perpetual pestering), and Tony’d had to agree that it hand’t felt quite right coming from him. Now was not a good time to try to unpack how it felt to hear it from Bucky. Whether there would ever  _be_ a good time to unpack those feelings was still up to Steve, and Steve wasn’t going to know that for at least three more days. 

“He’s coming back, okay?” Bucky’s voice had gotten startlingly closer, but was still soft and gentle. A steady hand came to rest on Tony’s knee. “That boy’s tough to get rid of, trust me, I’d know. Besides,” Bucky waited until Tony looked at him. With a playful smirk, he gestured at the two of them: “He left all his favorite stuff here.”

Tony snorted softly with grudging laughter. “I know, I know,” Tony allowed, huddling up more again. “But that doesn’t, um. There’s also. I don’t sleep very well without him. Been spending a lot of time with my 80′s cartoons lately, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh,” Bucky tensed. “Uh. Does that include, uh, when I’m borrowing him?”

“Don’t worry about that, it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.”

“My past doesn’t hold a candle to yours, buddy, you get to have the hug-monster sometimes,” Tony insisted, tapping his fist against Bucky’s arm in a sad attempt at a playful shove. 

“It’s not a competition, dumbass,” Bucky growled, and Tony wondered how he could sound so fond and so angry at the same time. “C’mere.”

Tony thought Bucky was going to hug him, and for a brief moment that’s all it was, but within seconds Tony was off the ground and watching his lab disappear over Bucky’s shoulder as he was bridal-carried out.

“Rude,” Tony huffed under his breath, but made no further complaint as Bucky wordlessly carried him off, all the way to the penthouse. 

Tony rolled his eyes when Barnes laid him down on top of the covers, though.

“There’s an expression, here, I think they had it back in your day,” Tony started, sarcastic, “Something about a  _horse_ and  _water_ and how leading it there doesn’t make it drink? I’m in bed, good job, but unless you’re going to pull Steve out of your hat I don’t see how this is keeping me from my two-thirty appointment with He-Man.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow at him and stalked over to the other side of the bed, where he sat down, kicked off his shoes, turned to glare at Tony again, and then laid down, arms crossed, right next to him. 

“What the fuck.”

“Seems like basic math to me, genius.”

“Steve–”

“–isn’t here,” Bucky interrupted. “He will be, and we’ll talk to him when he is. This is just sleep. For both of us.” Tony squinted at him, and noticed for the first time that Bucky looked as exhausted as Tony felt. “I don’t know if staying together will actually help, if we’re there yet as friends, but I’m tryna miss a date with my nightmares, you game?” 

“Okay,” Tony agreed, in what was probably not nearly as casual a tone as he wanted it to be. “I warn you, I’m a cuddler.”

“So I’ve heard.”

**********

Tony slept like a rock. So had Bucky, presumably, as Tony had woken up at ten in the morning draped sideways across an unconscious Bucky’s torso and with the sheets tied in knots around his legs. Trying to remove himself from that position without waking his bedmate had been a doomed effort, of course, but Bucky just shoved him gently backward by the face, ruffled his hair, and asked where to find coffee on his way out the door. 

Tony’s morning was surprisingly normal, for the most part, until the awkward moment when Sam most definitely noticed whose floor Buck had come from that morning. Bucky had gone straight on through the common areas toward the gym, and Tony had hooked a right to raid the main fridge before heading down to the workshop. Sam, on the couch, dropped the book he’d been reading into his lap and rubbed his temples.

“Help me out here, Stark,” Sam moaned as Tony rifled through take-out containers.

“Wassamatter, death-from-above?”

“I can’t tell if you need a shovel talk. Or maybe Barnes does.” He looked pleadingly in Tony’s direction. “I’d way rather mind my own business but y’all are up to something complicated and swear to Christ I can’t keep up without a scorecard. I just need to know nobody’s cheating on my friend?”

Tony chuckled at that desperate whine. “I’m with Steve. Buck’s with Steve. I am not with Buck and nothing happened last night.”

“They  _are_  together,” Sam smacked the back of the couch. “They swore up and down for months they weren’t!”

“What, in Wakanda? They weren’t at the time,” Tony finally gave up on the fridge and dug up a bagel instead, heading for the toaster. “Forties yes, Wakanda no, last couple of weeks yes.”

“And you…?”

“Sharing is caring,” Tony offered with a shrug.

“Okay, yup, that’s the maximum amount of information I want, I’m done here.”

Tony laughed again. “What, guys in uniform don’t do it for you? Don’t want any visions of supersoldiers dancing in your head? I just found out they’re great dancers, actually, I have footage–”

“No, no tapes, jesus no tapes, please–”

“Sir.” Jarvis cut in. There was a sharp edge to his tone that brought all banter to a screeching halt.

“What’s up, J?”

“Priority alert, sir. Captain Rogers’ convoy has now missed two check-ins.”

*************

_It’s not even a goddam mission_ , Tony seethed repeatedly,over the next ten days, _it wasn’t supposed to be dangerous_.

Steve hadn’t been on some black op, no supervillains, no insurgents, no nothing. It was a motherfucking press junket, a goodwill tour to spread awareness that hey, remember all those former Avengers who were fugitives for a while? It’s okay now, they’ve all been pardoned! No need to call the police if you see Hawkeye walking his dog in your town! He’s allowed! 

A fucking press tour. With Natasha shadowing among the security detail. 

Should have been the safest thing ever.

So where.

The Fuck.

WERE THEY.

Tony had Jarvis combing security footage of the events so far, watching traffic cams for signs of the missing vehicles, sifting through the emails and other communications of everyone involved for any clue, any sign of what may have gone wrong. 

The legal status of the former outlaws on the team was still in limbo and they weren’t allowed in the field. Tony would be the most use at the tower until there was something to fire repulsors at or reprogram somewhere else. Rhodey was right out, he’d finally graduated to walking casts and was making great progress, but his right femur seemed like more surgical pin than bone after Berlin and he’d be off the duty roster for a while yet. (Tony tried not to think about that too much; the sight of his best friend dropping out of the sky like a stone had dominated his usual nightmares for almost three months. He refused to imagine how much worse it could have been if Sam hadn’t managed to snag Rhodey’s arm a few seconds before impact. That move had gotten Sam pretty well clobbered too–and arrested–and it hadn’t been enough to spare Rhodey entirely, but if he’d hit the dirt at full speed…well, it wasn’t a debt Tony was about to forget.) That pretty much just left Underoos, and missing persons cases five states away weren’t what Tony’d had in mind for the kid. 

Well.

And there was Vision.

Tony never knew what the fuck to do with Vision. Tony’s creations had always been part of him. The armor was like his own skin. The arc reactor was more truly his heart than the muscle in his chest. His bots were his babies. Dumb babies, but his. Jarvis was, truly, like a son. Tony had watched him grow day by day, bursting with pride, watching him wrap his adaptive programming around the subtleties of human behavior until he could fold seamlessly into this weird little family of uniquely broken people that had come to live with Tony over the years.

Vision was…like finding out he’d had a child with a nasty ex that nobody’d ever told him about, who just showed up one day, all grown up and weirdly familiar but absolutely a stranger. Tony hadn’t had any hand in building that body, and his programming was such a mishmash of Ultron and Jarvis that Tony hardly felt he’d had anything to do with that, either. For all he was using the same voice protocols, Vision was barely anything like Jarvis. (Jarvis, who had been rebooted from a month-old save file on a black-box backup server once Ultron was gone, had no memory of the whole fiasco and seemed to find Vision at least as unsettling as Tony did.)

So. 

Tony’s only eyes on the scene were a few ex-SHIELD people Clint had vouched for, and his weird android stepchild. Not the most reassuring arrangement. 

Basically, Tony was a fucking wreck. Bucky was right there with him, too, grimly calling up the expertise he’d gained from Hydra to help piece the puzzle together, while quietly but visibly losing his mind. It seemed to help him, though, if he was allowed to look after Tony. Probably some deep instinct born of keeping mini-Steve alive through every disease known to man back in the old days. Shit’s bad?  _Protect the small one_. Tony sure as shit didn’t  _like_  being dragged away from his monitors for a hot meal or a few hours’ sleep, but he was smart enough to know he’d soon be useless if he wasn’t getting those things, and at least he could tell himself he was doing it to keep Bucky sane, which doubled as a favor to Steve, so really, the reasons to give in were overwhelming. 

Nine days in, they finally found Natasha. She’d managed to get herself out, of course, but hadn’t gone far because she hadn’t been able to take anyone with her. It had taken this long for their people to get close enough for her to make contact without giving herself away. She was wounded and low on supplies, but she had the intel they so desperately needed. 

AIM, Aldrich Killian’s old think-tank, had been absorbed by Hydra when Killian died. Some splinter faction made up of remnants of both had cooked up a plan to re-fracture the Avengers, stirring up global conflict and creating a market for their freaky inventions. For that, they’d needed any recently-pardoned Avengers they could catch, and had gone after Cap’s convoy. Phase two of their plan, according to Nat, had been to test a few of their nastier inventions on Steve until he broke, one way or another. If he came out the other side as a blank slate, they’d take control of him. If he went mad, they’d turn him loose to wreck shit up. If he died, they’d frame someone. Win-win-win. 

Except now Iron Man knew where to find them. Lose-Lose-Lose, motherfuckers. 

On day ten, Tony kicked down the door of an underground bunker in Oklahoma with more sense of purpose than he’d had in years. Bucky’d been despondent at not being allowed to come with, but it couldn’t be helped, so Tony liked to think he was throwing Bucky’s weight behind his punches, too. 

“Fuck you, HAIMDRA!” Tony crowed over comms, blasting another shitty minion across a room. 

“Pretty sure that’s not what they call themselves, Tony,” Widow replied in his ear, amusement curling under her words. 

“Do I look l care?” Tony punched down an interior door, leaning through to check inside. No Steve so far. “Never has there been a more appropriate time to antagonize gratuitously. Being called dumb names is gonna be the least of these guys’ problems. They took  _Steve_ , Nat,” real emotion got through the cracks of his banter, and he took it out on the next wall when his scans showed empty space on the other side. “I am not playing nice today.”

“Nor should you. Here, I’m in the computers, this looks like where he’s being kept. Two floors down, southwest corner. Go get your boy, Tin man.”

“ _Tin Man?_ ” Tony echoed, mock-offended, ripping the door off a stairwell and tossing it behind him in an entirely unnecessary display. “Wow. WOW. What happened to you in Africa, was the red hair the source of your powers of stoicness? Did the sun bleach your hard-as-nails exterior right off?” Tony stepped over the railing and dropped down the middle of the stairwell, standing upright, and used the repulsors to stop his descent at the level Natasha had indicated. “Not complaining, really, you do you, this just isn’t the you I’m used to.”

“Missed you too, boss,” she replied, and suddenly it was Natalie Rushman on the line, sweet as sugar. She audibly blew a kiss at him, and Tony laughed. 

That was the last moment of mirth he was going to get for a while, though. He’d found Steve. 

*************

Tony shifted uncomfortably in the visitors’ chair, again, curled up with his knees practically around his ears. He hadn’t left in days, despite the best efforts of the nurses and the half-hearted coaxing of his teammates. Steve was  _not_  going to wake up alone. His physical wounds had mostly healed now–thank you, Dr Erskine–but from the look of the room where Tony’d found him and Natasha’s intel, those were the least of it. 

A little distraction would be nice, though, not that anything really worked, for that. The first day or two (time was a blur, what even is a day, are days important?) he’d thrown himself into cooking up treatments and antitoxins with the doctors. But once their solutions seemed to be working, there was nothing to do but wait. Books, TV, movies, phone games, and even design work had failed to hold his attention, with Steve always pale and still in the background. 

God  _damn_  he wished Bucky was here. Fucking legal limbo. So stupid. Tony wanted to punch it. Or shoot it. Maybe melt it? Did melting work on complex legal problems?

A sudden, loud gasp broke through Tony’s internal insanity babble. Tony’s head snapped up; Steve’s eyes were wide open and wild with terror, his pulse meter was spiking, he was breathing hard and fast, and pulling against his restraints. They’d had to tie him down to stop him accidentally clocking any doctors, initially, and Tony had been forced to admit they should leave him that way until he showed some signs of lucidity again. Please, please let him be in there this time.

“Hey,” Tony soothed, jumping out of his chair and stumbling to Steve’s bedside. Goddamn legs, falling asleep in a time of crisis, fuck off, legs. “Hey, hey hey, Cap, Steve, baby, it’s me, it’s your Tony, I got you. Shhhhh.” He smoothed Steve’s hair back from his forehead and cupped his face in his hands. “You’re okay, honey, I promise, you’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

Previous such episodes had ended with poor Steve wearing himself out and slipping back into sleep. This time, after a moment, his eyes met Tony’s, pleading, full of tears and fear.

“…s’tony?” Steve whispered, in a tiny, hoarse voice.

“Yeah,” Tony’s face split into a grin, “It’s me, baby, I’m here. You’re gonna be okay.”

Steve seemed to consider that. “…s’real?”

“Yes, honey, I’m real, I promise,” They’d suspected pretty strongly that whatever those HAIMDRA idiots had been shooting Steve up with had been violently hallucinogenic. Theory: confirmed. 

Steve seemed much calmer now, his pulse had come down quite a bit and his face only looked lost, not panicked, so Tony decided to take a chance. A Steve who was at least 30% sane would never hurt him, of that he was sure.

“Here, sweetie,” Tony continued, gently, “I’m going to loosen some of these straps, okay? Let’s start with one arm and see how you do. Easy, now, there we go, hey, bet that feels better, huh?”

Steve flexed his newly-freed right arm with a confused whine, seeming to just now register why he hadn’t been able to move it before, and why the rest of him wouldn’t move still.

“I know, baby, I know, but you weren’t in control of yourself,” Tony assured him, running his hands over Steve’s arm to restore circulation, just in case. “You’d have been _so mad_  later if I let you punch out the doctors, you know you would.”

With a sad, put-upon little huff, Steve wrapped his free arm around Tony’s waist and drew him down, gently, for a half-hug. “…priddy sure y’r s’posda gimme a safeword…” he mumbled, pouting.

Laughter burst out of Tony so suddenly he thought it might shatter him. He buried his face in Steve’s shoulder and let it out, shaking with it, laughing until he cried. Yeah. Steve was still in there, all right. 

“S’Bucky okay?” Steve whispered, once Tony quieted. His voice was already getting stronger.

“Yes, he’s fine, sweetheart.”

“Where…?” Steve’s eyes scanned the room.

“Oh, he’s at home,” Tony explained, slightly apologetic. “Legal mess is still messy. We’re not. Home, that is. You were in bad shape and time was brain cells, so we got you to the nearest help instead of going straight home.”

“Oh…”

“You wanna talk to him? Got a phone right here, we can StarkTime him,” Tony grinned, crookedly, as Steve groaned. He had not, in point of fact, named the app StarkTime when he’d bought out FaceTime, hadn’t really even been tempted to, but he had teased Steve relentlessly about the possibility of doing so and insisted  _it’s still StarkTime if you’re calling me, honey._  Good to see Steve remembered their inside joke. “That’s a yes.”

Tony quickly propped up the phone on an end table and set it to project the call onto the blank wall behind it. After a few seconds of ringtone, Bucky’s face popped up on the wall.

“Tones! What’s up? How’s Steve?”

“Hey Buckaroo!” Tony grinned back. Okay, yes, it was starting to get hard to deny the rush of warmth when Bucky called him Tones. Wow, was this ever not the time for that, though. “He’s better! A bit. He asked for you!” Tony leaned farther to the side, making sure the camera showed Steve’s face.

“Stevie!” Bucky positively glowed at the sight of Steve awake. “Aw, sugar, you’re a sight for sore eyes, how do you feel?”

“…you fighting?” Steve asked, squinting at his image in puzzlement. Bucky was clearly a bit sweaty and even slightly short of breath.

Bucky laughed. “Naw, just training. Gotta do something to take my mind of my fella bein’ in the hospital, since I can’t visit. Sam was getting sick of my moping, too, thought I better give him some space before I got myself drop-kicked off the tower.”

Steve made an annoyed little noise. “Tell ‘im. No kicking my. My boys. I’m. I’d. Kick his damn ass. Stinkin’ Sam.”

“Aw, Tony, did you hear that? He called us _his boys_.”

“That was too goddam cute, Cap, that’s ridiculous, how can you be that cute while threatening to kick someone’s ass. How.”

“Kick anyone’s ass,” Steve mumbled sleepily. “Kick your ass. Kick your dog’s ass. Kick my own ass.” 

Tony’s jaw dropped, watching Steve’s mouth twist into a tiny, sleepy smile. “Who taught  _you_  memes??” Tony gasped.

Bucky was laughing as hard as Tony had when Steve had made the crack about safewords. Wordless, Steve dragged his eyes back open and pointed up at Bucky’s helpless, tear-streaked face.

“That one,” Steve whispered. “Sen’s me a text one day. Picture. Baby bird. Kick anyone’s ass. Text just says, ‘it u.’ I says, ‘u got me.’“

“Oh, god, I love you,” Tony realized with a jolt that he’d honestly meant that for both of them. He hoped fervently that it had sounded like he was talking to Steve. “My little murder chicken,” He added, kissing Steve lightly on the forehead. 

“Excuse me, I believe you’ll find that’s  _our_  little murder chicken,” Bucky scoffed. 

“You are correct, sir!” Tony agreed. “Our little chicken, indeed. So here’s one from Buck, too,” Tony dropped a second kiss next to the first. Steve’s face melted into a dopey smile beneath him. 

“Awww…” Steve exhaled in a sort of half-sigh half-moan, “My boys’s fren’s.”

“Eh, he’s not so bad, I guess,” Tony faked, with a broad wink at the phone. Steve yawned, unselfconsciously, a cavern of exhaustion. “Hm. He’s looking sleepy, Buck, I think sanity is hard work. Better let him rest. I’ll keep you posted?”

“Yeah, do that,” Bucky’s face had gone all soft and fond. Tony felt a little anxious flutter in his chest, wondering if some of that was for him. “Bring him home safe, Tones.”

“I will.”

***********************************

Now that Steve seemed to know where he was and who he was with, Tony abandoned the crappy chair entirely, staying wedged in against Steve’s side almost constantly. Over the next twenty-four hours Steve woke a few more times, never with more than a brief jolt before calming, which was enough for Tony to call it on the restraints. With those gone, Steve was quick to live up to his reputation as a hug-monster, keeping his powerful arms locked around Tony as often as superhumanly possible, in sleeping and in waking. 

Snuggling up next to him was doing a pretty good job of holding off all the terrors that tended to seek Tony out in the dark of night. It wasn’t quite enough to keep Steve’s dreams entirely peaceful, apparently, although Tony felt he could say with confidence that they were better than they would’ve been without Tony there. 

 

Tony snapped awake, against his will, at about two in the morning the night after Steve had been fully freed. He’d been enjoying that dream, rude, why with the waking up, and the crushing of the ribs, and–oh right.

“Mph, s’okay, s’okay baby,” Tony mumbled, slurring sleepily and pawing into the darkness at something large and muscular that was breathing a little bit too fast. “M’here. S’all good.”

“Tony?”

“Mmhmm. M’here.”

“Oh, thank god,” Steve sighed, relaxing his hold a bit. He breathed silently into Tony’s hair for a few seconds. “Just a dream.”

“Just a dream, baby. Wanna talk about it?”

“ _No_ ,” Steve said quickly, but added, much more softly, “…you were in it.”

“Mmm,” Tony agreed, nodding sagely, which conveniently meant rubbing his face on Steve’s chest. “Sounds like a bad time. Hey, I was dreaming about you, too,” he remembered suddenly. “Uh. I think my dream was more fun than yours.” Tony laughed sheepishly, pressing his hips up against Steve’s thigh to show him  _how_  fun. 

“ _Tony_ ,” Steve scolded, but he was laughing too. “That’s for me, huh?”

“What can I say, my boy treats me right.”

“Oh yeah? What was your boy up to, this time?”

Tony peered up at Steve’s face through the darkness. “Well, now, that would be telling,” he teased.

“Please?” Steve urged, a little too fragile, a little to earnest. “I’d really rather be thinking about your dream than mine.”

“Hmm,” Tony reached up and carded his fingers through Steve’s hair, trying to piece the fading shards of dream back together in his mind. “Well. Dreams do tend to be vague, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But I do remember noticing how soft your hair was,” Tony went on, moving both hands to muss said hair in an affectionate massage. Steve hummed appreciatively. “How warm your mouth was,” he slunk up Steve’s chest to slot their lips together, unable to help grinding against Steve’s hip on the way up. “God, how  _thick_  you were inside me…”

Steve whimpered, high and needy, both hands suddenly clamped onto Tony’s ass. The steady beeping of his heart monitor climbed noticeably in pace.

Tony huffed a laugh against Steve’s mouth, turning to look at the machines. “Your nurses are going to know if we do any more than this, Cap. Maybe let’s not scare them?”

“Nobody’s gonna call a crash cart if  _you_  come,” Steve growled out, low and possessive, using his grip to press Tony’s crotch against him. 

“ _Steve_.” Breathless, not quite sure how to take that, whether it was okay how much he wanted it, whether it would be entirely selfish to accept it.

“I got too many pictures in my head that I don’t wanna see anymore,” Steve whispered, and Tony could  _hear_  the stubborn set of his jaw. “Can…can I see my Tony feeling good because I touched him, instead?”

Warm affection blossomed in Tony’s chest, mingling terrifically with the surge of heat from farther south. “Okay,” he whispered back, “If that would make you happy.”

If the heart monitor had been hooked up to Tony, somebody would have  _definitely_  sent a crash cart. There was a little fumbling to begin, a bit of struggling to get Tony’s shirt off so that the light of the arc reactor would give Steve a better view of him, a bit of strategically arranging tissues so that there wouldn’t be a mess for the orderlies to find. Then, for a few blessed minutes, Tony’s world was all warm kisses and big hands and quiet begging and oh, dear god, yes please.

He drifted for a while after, in a soft pink haze. Eventually his brain seemed to settle back into his skull, and Tony noticed that the tissues had vanished and his shirt was draped thoughtfully over his bare shoulders like a shawl.

“Such a gentleman,” Tony commented, nuzzling into the side of Steve’s neck with a bashful grin and a pleased sigh. Steve nuzzled back, so apparently he was still awake. “Thank you, sweetheart. I feel selfish, though. This is super unfair.”

“I don’t need anything,” Steve assured him, “I just wanted to see you.”

“Well, that too, and I’ll get you later when it won’t cause a code blue, but uh, I was talking about Bucky, actually.”

“Really?”

Tony shrugged, feeling the rumble of Steve’s laughter beneath him.

“Are, are you two keeping score, now?” Steve wheezed, “Do I need to drag him down to medical for a handjob when we get back? Keep it even?”

Tony got in a good giggle of his own, at that image. 

“Oh my god, please do, he’d be so confused,” Tony sobered a little. “I meant sort of overall, though. Because he can’t be here. Because I know he likes to look after you, and he can’t right now. He probably hasn’t slept in a week.”

Steve studied him in the faint light. “You care about him.”

Tony ducked his head, trying not to be too obvious about it. Well, yes, he cared about Bucky a lot now, honestly, but that conversation was for the three of them to have together. “I got to know him better. He’s a good guy. He deserves you.”

“I love you, Tony.”

It was said with such urgency, such conviction, such Captain-America-earnestness that Tony looked back up at him in surprise. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like there might be tears in the corners of Steve’s eyes. 

“I love you so much, and I need you, I need you both so much it hurts and I still don’t understand that but it’s true,” Steve was rambling, clutching Tony to his chest, panic at the edges of his voice. “Having both of you means so much to me and I’ve never felt so  _whole_  and I’m living every day in terror that I’m going to ruin it and one of you will leave and I just can’t, I can’t handle that, please, I love you so much–”

“Hey, hey, Steve, baby, whoa,” Tony took Steve’s face in his hands, hushing him gently with his fingers. “Take it easy, honey, I’m not going anywhere, I love you too, and so does Bucky, I promise.” He drew himself up a bit, to look sternly down into Steve’s eyes. “The first common ground Barnes and I ever had was how much we love you, and I know that caused a bit of a kerfuffle at first, but we’ve got this worked out now. We look at each other and think, thank god, I know I can trust that guy to take care of my Steve when I can’t be there. That guy makes my Steve smile, and will hold my Steve tight and tell him he’s loved. All we want is for you to be happy, and we’ve learned to make that happen as a team. Neither of us is leaving you, baby. We’ll get you back to him soon, okay? Then he can tell you, too.”

“…Okay.”

“What brought that on, huh?” Tony asked softly, stroking his thumb over Steve’s cheek. 

“Lotta bad dreams, I guess.” 

Now that there was definitely a lie. Tony may not yet have been on Bucky’s level when it came to knowing when Steve was full of it, but that, that was a lie. Tony raised an eyebrow. 

“Uhuh,” Tony replied, not bothering to try and sound convinced. “Well. When you want me to know what that was really about, I’ll be right here.”

“Tony…”

“No no, you’ve been through a lot, it’s okay,” Tony offered a bit more sincerely, sitting up to pull his shirt back on, then digging back in under the blankets to see if he could get back to sleep. “I do hope you’ll tell me eventually, though. Hard to help you through shit if I don’t know whats happening.”

Steve held him close until they both drifted back to sleep, but didn’t speak another word.

*********************************

The next day Steve was pronounced fit to fly, and everything became a flurry of preparations to get him home. By early afternoon things were mostly in place. Tony elected to fly ahead in the suit, to set up a space in medical for the machines he’d helped modify that were still being used, periodically, to scrub all the nasty out of Steve’s blood. He’d only need a couple more treatments, but that was more than zero, so things needed doing. Tony wasn’t fond of the idea of leaving Steve’s side again, but Natasha would be with him and Clint had managed to get permission to pilot the jet that would bring them home. No quinjets, those were too highly regulated, but one of Tony’s personal leisure fleet was allowed.

At top speed, Tony was home inside of forty-five minutes. It was barely three in the afternoon. Prepping a space in medical was mostly a matter of shoving a couple of things off to the side. Tony frowned around at the room, checked his watch, and shrugged. Well, he was home now, just gotta wait for the jet. He wandered up to Steve’s room to see if it needed any freshening up, maybe that would kill some time.

Ah.

Somebody else had had the same idea.

“Well, fancy meeting you here, laughing boy,” Tony stated by way of announcing his arrival. 

“Hey,” Bucky acknowledged with a jerky nod.

“What’s cookin’?” Tony leaned against the kitchen counter, sniffing the air.

“Cookies,” Barnes grunted. “Ma’s recipe. It’ll smell like home to Stevie. Or. Old home, I guess.”

“Nice thought,” Tony agreed, looking him up and down, taking in the hunch of his shoulders, the rumpled clothes, the scraggly hair. “Hey, you doing okay?” 

Barnes turned to give him a scathing eyebrow-raise, revealing dark circles under his eyes that would’ve put Tony to shame on his worst day. Tony whistled lowly.

“Damn, Buckaroo.”

“Yeah, well.” Barnes grumbled, turning back to look at the timer on the stove. “Not real great at sleeping alone. Worse when I got a real reason to worry about somebody.” 

“Aw, Buck. C’mere, you,” Tony stepped around the counter and spread his arms. Bucky, grudgingly, leaned into them and accepted the hug. After a few moments, Tony released him to arm’s length. “Okay. We’ve got almost three hours until he should be here. You. You are a travesty this is not acceptable. You cannot welcome our boy like this. Go shower and get fresh clothes right now, I’ll take the cookies out.”

“I showered this morning,” Bucky complained, defensive, as if Tony was accusing him of not having bathed since he’d left. “I’m clean. Dick.”

“Okay, well, get less shabby then. Fuck. I dunno. I’m not really an expert on levels of presentable between ‘grease monkey’ and ‘runway model’. I kind of only have two settings.” Tony ran his fingers through his helmet-hair, illustrating the point. 

Bucky gave him a stare that was somehow more sarcastic than words.

“Wow. Hurtful.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Still hurtful.” Tony insisted. “You know what you need, crankypants? You need a nap. It’s this crabbyness that’s such a bad look on you. Fix that. There’s time.”

Bucky opened his mouth a couple of times, said nothing, and blushed, looking away.

“Do you need a nap-buddy?” Tony prompted, leaning up next to Bucky and bumping shoulders with him. “You’re allowed to ask for a nap-buddy. I’m a great nap-buddy, we’ve proven this, you’ve seen my credentials. Here, I’ll make it easy. Hey Buck, I’d like to come cuddle up with you while you get some sleep, would that be okay?”

“Cookies’ll burn.”

“I can read timers, those will be done in forty-five seconds. We can wait that long.”

Bucky grunted.

**********************

_**“JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES.”** _

Tony flailed himself awake. Awake? Awake meant previously sleeping, why was Tony sleeping, he hadn’t meant to be sleeping, he was supposed to be keeping an eye on the time so they’d be ready when Steve–uh oh. Tony peeked one eye open. Yep, there he is, that’s Captain America, looking extremely disappointed in someone, somebody’s going to fucking die.

“I didn’t do it,” grumbled a sullen voice from somewhere behind Tony.

“BUCK.” Steve was towering over them with his arms crossed, all bulging muscles and popping veins. Shit. 

“Hey whoa, time out,” Tony broke in, blinking away sleep and trying to get his brain firing properly. “I don’t, wow, this is not what it looks like, nothing is happening here, and why are you only yelling at him? Seriously Cap that’s–”

“Bucky you deep-fried asshole, are you serious right now?” Steve seethed on, ignoring Tony. “ _This is not what we agreed on._ ”

“Deep-fr–?” Tony blinked rapidly, then shook his head. Not the important part of the conversation. He heaved himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. “Honey, it’s, god, it’s not his fault, okay? Nothing happened, really, but, uh, we’ve been meaning to talk to you, about, uh–” Tony’s throat locked up. Steve’s immediate reaction to finding the two of them fully-clothed-and-only-slightly-cuddling was not inspiring confidence that he’d be okay with hearing what had happened in the workshop. 

“Oh jesus, I’ve ruined everything,” Tony whispered under his breath, burying his face in his hands. 

“Aw, Steve, now look what you did, you’re scaring him.” The mattress shifted under Tony, and Bucky’s arms encircled his chest, squeezing just enough to be reassuring. He seemed to be about to say something more, but Steve cut him off.

“ME?!” Steve protested, practically apoplectic, “ _You_  are deliberately ignoring his wishes!  _This is not what we talked about._  You’re pushing him!”

“Steve, stop,” Tony rasped out. Oh god, he was going to lose them both. “He’s not pushing me. We. I, I kissed him.” Tony shut his eyes. 

“You see?!” Steve insisted, and there was a whiff of breeze in front of his face as if Steve were waving emphatically at him. “This is exactly what I told you not to do, Buck, you knew he didn’t want to tell me until I was home! You weren’t supposed to do anything until we all talked. You were supposed to give him  _space_.”

Tony’s eyes snapped open, but he could only stare at the carpet between Steve’s feet, brows furrowed. “What.”

“I’m standin’ as far back as I can, Stevie, but have you  _seen_  this boy?”

“ _What_.”

“Bucky I’m pretty sure the first rule of relationships is that when the thing we agreed to do is no longer the thing you are doing, you are supposed to _tell the rest of us_ ,” Steve insisted. “What the hell did I even just walk into? What else did you do while I was gone that I should know about?”

“All I did was take care of him, like I was supposed to,” Bucky protested, pulling Tony into his lap protectively. 

“You fucked up a perfectly good genius is what you did, look at him, he’s got anxiety," Steve deadpanned.

Tony burst out laughing. What the fuck.  _What the fuck_. Steve sank into view in front of him, on his knees on the carpet. There was a wry smile on his face. One of his hands came to rest on Tony’s knee, the other on his cheek.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Steve asked, gently.

“Who  _teaches_  you these things?” Tony gasped out, leaning into his palm.

“Clint showed me that one, on the way home.”

“Clint was supposed to be _flying a plane_.”

“Don’t underestimate what an ex-carnie can do while driving,” Steve advised him seriously. “And that was not an answer to my question.”

“I don’t understand, what, what’s happening? You knew?” 

Steve leveled a significantly less amused look over Tony’s shoulder. “Tell him what you did, Buck.”

Bucky heaved a put-upon sigh and tightened his arms around Tony. “I told Steve.”

“More words,” Steve prompted.

“I called Steve about fifteen minutes after I left the workshop, to tell him if he’s going to leave adorable engineers who do nice things for me lying around the tower, I can’t be held responsible for the consequences.”

“Buuuuck…” Steve groaned. 

“ _That is almost exactly what I said on the phone_.”

“I know, that doesn’t make it better.” Steve insisted, squinting at him. “What happened, Tony, is that this jerk knew very well you wanted to tell me in person, but he decided without your input that I needed to know right away, and I told him off for going behind your back. We agreed he wouldn’t do anything else stupid until I got home, and that I wouldn’t tell you he’d ignored your wishes. However. We see how well that worked out.”

“And…you’re not mad about…?” Tony ventured, tentatively.

Steve sat back heavily on the floor, arms flopping into his own lap. “Not really? I don’t know how to feel, about that part. It’d be awful of me to expect you both to be exclusive to me, wouldn’t it? And I’m used to the idea of Buck seeing other people, because we never could be a real couple in the old days, but, this is now, and things are different, and I just…I don’t know.”

A stray piece of data slotted into place in Tony’s brain.

“ _This_  is what you were worried about last night, isn’t it,” Tony realized. “Oh honey, are you afraid we’re going to leave you for _each other_?”

Steve picked at the carpet. “Or I’ll just drive you away, being a jealous dick.”

“No. Nope. None of this. This stops now,” Tony wriggled free of Bucky’s grip and slithered to the floor, crawling into Steve’s lap instead. He looked back up at Bucky, whose arms were still hovering around the space he’d vacated, looking slightly bereft. “Well? Get down here, take the other side, what are you waiting for?”

With a dawning look of understanding, Bucky dropped off the bed onto his knees, circling Steve to hold him from behind, forming a complicated interlocking hug with Tony in front. Steve went still and quiet between them.

“Listen, babe,” Tony said very seriously, nudging Steve with the tip of his nose until they were eye-to-eye. “Me and Buck have gotten a lot closer lately, that’s the truth and it’s not going to un-happen, or at least I hope not, but your feelings matter and neither of us is dumb enough to give up what we have with you for the maybe-something that’s sort of starting to happen between us. We can just be friends, if that’s what you need. It’s not too late for that.”

“…can I ask a question?” Steve mumbled, staring at Tony’s left shoulder.

“Sure?”

“What were you  _doing_  in here?”

“Bucky hasn’t been sleeping, I thought he should get a nap before you got back.”

“Why were you here too, then, you slept fine last night?”

“So that he’d sleep,” Tony explained with a shrug.

Steve craned his neck to look behind himself at Bucky, incredulous. 

“You  _sleep_  with him?” It didn’t sound like an accusation, it sounded like disbelief, as if Bucky’s ability to actually sleep with Tony around was what Steve was questioning.

“Yeah,” Bucky admitted, meeting Steve’s eyes but looking incredibly fragile. “So does he,” Bucky added, prodding Tony in the ribs accusingly. “Did you know this idiot doesn’t sleep when you’re gone?”

“Hey, rude, that is a gross exaggeration–”

“It is not, you must have gone through the whole series of He-Man five times before I figured you out–”

“Bucky knows about He-Man…?” Steve whispered in disbelief, ignored entirely by the pair arguing over him.

“You did not  _figure me out_ , we had a  _conversation_ , by the way, Steve, I saw you dancing, you rat–”

“ _Tony saw us dancing_?” Steve’s whispers, still unheeded, pitched up sharply in panic. 

“Oh don’t get on him about secrets, now, seriously, Mr Hey-Did-I-Mention-If-This-Light-Goes-Out-I’ll-Die, I’m still not over that scare, how dare you pop that thing out without warning me about the battery backup–”

“You  _ **took out the reactor**_  in front of him?!” Steve spoke up that time, finally getting their attention. “Jesus Christ you two, when’s the wedding?!”

“Uh.”

“I’m confused. Did you just propose to us? Bucky did he just propose to us?”

“No, what, no, you, no,” Steve stammered, ears going red. “This mess is not ready for that. Nobody do that. There is no. This is not marriage-ready, we are a mess. I’m trying to tell you two idiots that  _you’re in love_  and I should not have veto-power over that.”

“And I’m trying to tell you that just because I might be falling for your boyfriend, that doesn’t mean I love you any less and I don’t want to lose you.”

“I think you’re both making this way too complicated,” Bucky groused, tucking his face in beside Steve’s neck. “And what part of ‘‘til the end of the line’ do you not understand, punk?” 

Steve sniffed, relaxing back against Bucky and nuzzling into his cheek. “Probably the part where you keep tryna make time with my fella, jerk.”

“He could be  _our_  fella,” Bucky suggested. Tony felt himself grow warm, inside and out. The same thing seemed to be happening to Steve, judging by the light dusting of pink across his cheeks, and the way his eyes went wide. “We could be  _his_  boys.”

Oh, oh wow. Yes.  _Theirs_. Until just that moment, Tony’s love for Steve and his rapidly blossoming feelings for Bucky had been separate things in his mind: probably compatible, but distinct. Without quite realizing it, he’d been picturing a future where they might be allowed to do what Steve was doing now, spending time with each other  _or_  with him, as the situation allowed. Bucky was painting a different picture. Suddenly Tony’s mind was full of images of the three of them, clustered on the sofa in front of a movie, piled into one bed for the night, squashed into a restaurant booth together. For the first time, that little rush of affection he’d been getting from thinking of Steve as  _our boy_  turned inward. He imagined Steve and Bucky discussing him the way he and Bucky talked about Steve, and, wow, hit the emergency shut-down, brain officially overloaded, no more thinking.

“Please?” Tony breathed, and he realized it was no longer Steve’s permission he was asking. He was begging them both to make this real. 

“Like the sound of that, doll?” Bucky purred, smiling slyly at him. “You wanna be  _ours_?”

“I. I want that so much I’m not sure how I’m breathing right now,” Tony babbled out in a rush. He realized he was shaking, but wasn’t sure why or what to do about it. 

“Our Tony,” Steve murmured, turning the phrase over in his mouth, testing out the taste of it. Tony shivered harder in his lap. Steve twisted a little to look at Bucky, raising a considering eyebrow. “Our Buck?”

And that was the brightest shade of red Tony’d seen on Bucky’s face, to date, but it had a nice big grin with it, so it was probably fine. “Guess I would be, wouldn’t I?” 

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, turning his gaze back to Tony and licking his lips. “I think you are.”

Steve started to lean forward and Tony rushed to meet him, kissing the life out of him, needing him like air, and oh, that was Bucky’s hand on his waist, being in this with them, holy shit. His  _flesh_  hand, no less, which meant his other, the one Tony had made for him, was on Steve, and wasn’t that a complex barrel of feelings. Steve pulled back just a breath, enough to look lovingly down at Tony for just a moment, then Bucky’s hand had moved from Tony’s waist and just barely, just by the fingertips, guided Steve’s chin to the side–

Tony had glimpsed little moments of intimacy between the two soldiers before. Little touches, little smooches, a little good-to-see-you-sweetheart gesture here and there. Things the public was allowed to see. 

This was not that. 

This was lovers. This was lovers  _loving_ , and  _god_  they were beautiful together.  _Mine_ , Tony thought fiercely, but there was no jealously there, no desire to pry them apart. He’d build a thousand-foot wall around these two, a mile thick, and patrol the perimeter in his suits, to keep them together just like this, just this gorgeous, just this happy, forever and ever. 

“I could seriously watch this for the rest of my life,” someone said, in Tony’s voice, interrupting very rudely in a way that Tony would not do to this pair of perfect seraphim making out on his carpet. 

Bucky snorted on a laugh, right in Steve’s face, and turned to Tony. “Now that sounds plain unfair.”

Then Bucky was reaching for him, and this time it was okay so Tony went to him and yes, wow, this is definitely the man who taught Steve to kiss, this is the master, Tony would like to sign up for classes please, hopes class meets every day forever. Tony was still in Steve’s lap, with Steve’s arms around his waist, and Steve made the same little noise he’d made last night when he’d put his hands on Tony’s ass and hey there they were again, getting a good squeeze in. Tony spared a hand to run through Steve’s hair. Bucky’s metal fingers were already there, though, so Tony smiled into the kiss and moved his hand to Cap’s cheek, instead. 

When Tony eventually needed to breathe, he took the opportunity to check in. “Steve?” Tony’s voice had gone all hoarse and low. Well. What can you do when a couple of superhumans are after your tonsils. “Is this okay, baby?”

“ _Okay?_  Is it OKAY?!” Steve looked at him like he’d lost his mind. He put one hand each on the back of Tony and Bucky’s heads, smooshing their faces together. “More. Do that more. Don’t stop. Buck can we put him in the middle? Come around here, get Tony in the middle–”

Tony dissolved into laughter, pleasantly helpless in their grip. Yeah.

This might just work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it! I may yet throw in an epilogue because I feel like they deserve to get laid after all that trouble, but that may end up as a different fic we'll see.
> 
> Thank you everyone for your kind words and your patience, this was my very first Avengers fic and as some of you may have seen I quite suddenly found myself getting actual real-life divorced in the middle of writing it but hey! Every chapter that got written represents some nonzero amount of time I spent doing a fun hobby instead of having an _existential crisis_ , so yay! 
> 
> If you want to know what Steve was doing with his ass during that dance that Tony was so interested in, check out [this how-to video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlpZrWvAL_w&t=24s) for the Lindy Hop step known as "swivels". Join me in imagining Chris Evans doing this thing. Also, [here's a great full-speed video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlTVJ9fOmro) of a bunch of people Lindy Hopping like it's 1939.


End file.
